Student Gardens

Gardens of Diversity – Student Gardens at FH Erfurt

Once the plots had been assigned to the students in April 2021, the temperatures from mid-May allowed work to begin on FHE's new student gardens. Now in July 21, the gardens are in full bloom. The project, initiated by Prof. Birgit Wilhelm (Horticulture), Prof. Doris Gstach (Spatial Planning) and Prof. Ilke Marschall (Landscape Architecture) during the interdisciplinary project week 2019, has since become an FHE university group with an active Moodle room.

Around 60 students from various departments enthusiastically lay claim to the 30 plots on the ‘Green Campus’ in the new educational landscape park, keen to experiment with their gardening skills.

Without doubt, the excellent preparatory groundwork carried out by Mr Münnich's team of gardeners from the FH in the autumn of 2020, as well as the know-how, plants and seeds supplied directly from the neighbourhood, proved to be a great help. Thanks to Mr Tröstrum's workshop, it was also possible to install a water supply.

We have had to overcome a number of initial setbacks, including white fly, brown rot and wild hare eating the crops (which has since been contained by a temporary fence).

An impressive variety of robust, healthy and extremely diverse vegetable crops can be found here, interspersed with numerous flowering plants, making this a real treasure trove of biodiversity on the FH campus. Chard, runner beans, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, cabbage and onions, as well as magnificent artichokes and sprawling courgette and pumpkin plants, are all ripe for the picking.

Besides gaining a wide range of experience in working with crops and soil and successfully implementing the hygiene concept, the members of the project are also united in their desire to continue their work, initially by growing winter vegetables and creating communal facilities such as a wooden fence, seating, and shared fruit trees and berry bushes. The plan is to expand the area, which would also enable more efficient crop rotation, as well as to hold joint workshops to discuss the structural development of further student gardens.

Until then, we can savour the view and hopefully also some culinary delights from the home-grown harvest. (Birgit Wilhelm, Ilke Marschall, photos: 07/21 Marschall)