King of my garden

King of my garden, the people of community garden Groen Gennep, the Netherlands

Groen Gennep is a community complex of vegetable gardens in the Netherlands, south of Eindhoven, next to the High Tech Campus. Although it is a postage stamp of land; the whole society is represented here.

There are 200 gardeners and they are all different from each other; in nationality (22), age, social class, reasons for having a garden, growing strategies, vegetables etc. Despite their differences, these gardeners all have one thing in common; they love their garden and they work with passion and dedication.

You can feel like a king on your own plot. You can deal with things exactly the way you want to. The challenges you face are manageable and the outcome is not a big risk (in contrast to many things in reality of daily life outside the garden).

Gardening is a solo process. You have to be creative to grow good vegetables. There are all kinds of obstacles and challenges to face, like the weather, plant diseases, pests, weeds. People put their heart and soul into this and come up with creative solutions. At Groen Gennep everybody creates their own work of art, and everybody is king of his garden.