The place where you learn democracy

“I met a lot of people here that I would never have met otherwise. In the past, it was simply the meadow where my dog ​​defecated,” says Mario. The 58-year-old, who came to Germany as a child from what was then Yugoslavia, is sitting on a block of stone on Schneidhainer Strasse in Frankfurt’s Gallus. Here, volunteers have built raised beds out of old pallets on a green area, in which local residents grow herbs and vegetables. A hedge grows all around, and a winding path winds through the greenery.

In a broad Hessian accent, Mario tells how he got into conversation with gardeners like Christo, who grew old, rare tomato varieties here. And that when he walks his dog here, he sometimes secretly nibbles a little rocket from the beds, which he now also grows at home himself. He can’t stop raving: “It’s really nice here, I’m glad that there is a project like this here.”

We are in the Gallus garden, where on this sunny Friday afternoon the “Day of the Neighbors” is being celebrated with a strawberry festival. Numerous families have come and stroll along the winding path through the green. A colorful mixture of languages ​​from Somali, Ukrainian, Spanish, Turkish and German can be heard. While Mario is talking like a waterfall, music sounds over from the off.

Beds that connect

On the small stage in the first of the three garden sections, near the wet biotope and the insect and bee bed, the “clay gardeners” have tuned their guitars, exuberant children are dancing in front of them. Volunteers from Deutsche Bank and Linklaters, who are helping out here as part of a “Social Day”, have set up tables where they offer coffee and strawberry cake and where the children can paint flower pots or make glittery tattoos.

“Originally we wanted to have a garden for our day care center,” says Jessica Wiegand. She works at the neighboring multi-generation house “Kinder im Zentrum”, a well-known institution in the district, and looks after the Gallus garden. “At the same time, we had heard from the district management that many residents would also like to do something. So we turned it into a public garden.” A professional planning process involving architects and local residents began in 2016 in order to obtain funding from the city. A search for explosive ordnance was carried out, during which a World War II bomb was removed, and contaminated soil was also replaced. All three garden sections have been finished since 2018.

“This year, for the first time since Corona, we advertised the neighborhood festival widely, with Instagram posts, in our newsletters and with notes that we threw in mailboxes in the area,” says Wiegand. She knows many of the festival guests from the offers in the multi-generational house – but many just stopped by spontaneously, like Mario, who lives next door.