A little info: European garden homes are near the cities and range between rudimentary and manicured gardens with small homes often. In Germany and Austria there is a ‘Kleingarten’ for people that live in apartments and want to use land for growing vegetables and hosting barbeques. Is there something similar in the US, either by design, spontaneous, or a certain type of land-use designation?
https://germangirlinamerica.com/what-is-a-schrebergarten/amp/
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I know what you’re talking about, because I’ve seen this in Italy. Most Americans will be confused.
Apartment complexes sometimes have ‘common areas’ but it’s not like what you describe. Sometimes in warmer climates there will be a pool that residents and guests can use. In some places you could maybe get away with grilling/BBQ in a common area, but most people would just head to the nearest public park.
Growing vegetables in an apartment complex’s ‘common area’ would be nothing doing unless you lived in some kind of progressive ‘forward thinking’ eco building, and the rent would probably be extremely high.
At least from my experience, the US doesn’t have an equivalent of Schrebergärten. Having your own home and land in the US is more common, so people will tend to use that more often for a similar function. People will also use spaces at public parks to hold barbecues and get togethers. Some people will also go to public camp grounds and have a party/barbecue there out of the back of their car. In recent years community gardens have also started to be popular in some areas to grow vegetables for everyone.
A far greater portion of Americans own a house on a small lot with its own lawn and garden beds, so it’s not really a thing here.
Thanks, that was an interesting read! We have community gardens in some cities, and even in small towns. Our town has a subsidized apartment complex for the elderly, disabled, and handicapped that has an extensive green area with a large community garden for the residents. Most people here in my town have enough backyard room for their own garden with things like tomatoes onions and potatoes. The “German small garden act” sounds like a very intense HOA with more rules than I’d be interested in following.
The closest thing would be [community gardens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_gardening), but there aren’t little shacks for every plot.
the closest thing to Schrebergarten in the US are community gardens. But they’re not rented to specific people, it’s a community thing — they’re run and maintained by volunteers, and usually at least some of the food is donated to local nonprofits and foodbanks. Here’s the one in my hometown: https://raleighcityfarm.org/
That said, some community gardens do rent out plots to individuals, in a similar way to how Kleingartens work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)#United_States
But individual allotments are definitely more common in Europe, because a much higher proportion of Americans have access to their own space to garden in.
I’ve seen allotment gardens in large cities, but they’re not nearly as elaborate as the Kleingartenvereine as I saw them in Germany (when I lived there, one of the regular walks I took with my dog went by one). The few allotment gardens I’ve seen in the US didn’t have the individual plots fenced in, nor the cottages.
Others have hit on the reasons already. Except in very densely packed, older cities, US homes often are built on enough land that there’s usually room for a garden and other landscaping.
Are there community gardens? Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_gardening
Owning a house with a small lot for garden space is the norm here.
Some cities in the US have community gardens, which are maybe somewhat similar. A plot of community owned-land that people can grow flowers or vegetables on. But people don’t live by them. They’re more like a public park, you just go there and do your thing then go home.
My town has quite a few community gardens where people without a yard can get a plot and grow whatever they’d like. Homeowners in this area often have extensive gardens in their own yards. I have a full English garden in both my front & back yard instead of grass, as do about 40% of my neighbors.
But Ive never seen this level of gardening in other regions I’ve lived in. I’m in the PNW now
My city has a P-Patch program. The city parks department owns land that is used for gardening by the locals. I have a 10 feet x 20 feet gardening plot in my local P-Patch.
A lot of city parks have BBQ grills installed for public use. And nice newly constructed apartment buildings usually have rooftop patio with communal BBQ grills.
It’s very common for US cities to have community gardens where anyone can come grow flowers and vegetables, but you can’t build shacks in them. You can Google “US community gardens” to see examples.
Whether or not you can own your own plot in one or it’s all considered open to the public varies by the policies of the garden.
BBQs are hosted in public parks and other community spaces. Parks typically have public BBQ grills that sit on cement blocks to reduce fire risk.
From the article:
> We don’t have Schrebergarten in the United States, but we do have community gardens, and in England there are Allotment Gardens.
So… doesn’t the article you linked to answer your own question?
I’m confused, this Schrebergarten thing just kinda looks like a small house with a small yard.
There are conservatories and large greenhouses, but they’re typically pretty rare and on/adjacent to bigger estates, not the typical neighborhood
Seattle has community gardens where individuals can have an allotted space to grow things, but there aren’t a bunch of sheds or rudimentary homes or whatever in them. That would take too much space away from the gardening. There might be one communal shed for tools and such.
In Chicago, sometimes empty city lots become community gardens where people can rent a garden bed or two. Not really any sort of structures in them other than maybe a basic shed to store some tools.
Firstly, there’s a lot of houses that have their own gardens, so that kind of fills the need.
For fancier gardens, city near me has some nice ones. The Rose garden is open to the public, and there’s also the Japanese and Chinese gardens that require admission. The zoo has some garden-like qualities as well.
In terms of food growing space, there’s community gardens. I’ve seen city parks with them, or just little lots that have been used for that. People also do that kind of thing on their own property. Barbecuing too.
That’s of course ignoring city parks, state parks, and national parks. Sometimes the later two have charcoal barbecues installed, especially if camping is allowed.
There are community gardens in some places where you can go and have a garden patch along with others in your community. There is a community garden area in my town but most of us have big enough yards so don’t need extra land to have a garden. There are not many apartments here. There aren’t buildings for the gardens.