Johannisbeeren

Only in Germany... hand-picked Johannisbeeren from a German friend's back yard!  There were so many berries that she invited me and several others to help ourselves.  It was such a nice way to spend a beautiful sunny day.  I have never had a garden but this experience makes me see the appeal of having your own garden.  It feels so "living off the land" healthy and you know that the food is good and organic.

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Germans seem especially passionate about gardening.  In Germany there are even large tracts of land called Kleingärten – where people rent out small plots to have their own garden.  European cities are so compact that most people don't have a yard or garden space and this is a way that they can still have a garden.  In big cities the demand often exceeds the supply - 40% of all Kleingärten keep waiting lists.  In Germany there are more than one million Kleingärten and I have seen two even in our little town.  When you travel by train, you can see many large Kleingärten in the countryside just on the edge of the bigger cities like Munich and Berlin.

The Kleingarten is surrounded by a fence and there are small lanes running down the length of the Kleingarten to access the individual gardens that are each sectioned off by their own fences.  Most of the gardens have a small cabin, for storage, etc. and some cabins are really cute with windows and front porches.  People are not supposed to live in these cabins but some do.  The gardens and little cabins make me think of little hobbit towns.  The whole concept is so charming and cute!

a Kleingartencolonie in Berlin, see website

So back to the berries... I had picked a TON of berries!  My German friend makes jelly with the berries and suggested that I do that.  However, upon further investigation, that is a tedious process!  So instead I made about 4 dozen Johannisbeere muffins... and then proceeded to throw out the rest of the batter because I still had about half the batter left!!!  (Suffice to say we have met our Johannisbeere quota for a while-- we were eating muffins every morning for breakfast for over a week and giving muffins away to anyone willing to take them!)