The Field Guideby Moss & MarrowGroenste Tuin
- Organic methods: no synthetic pesticides or fertiliser, not certified
De Groen(s)te Tuin is a neighbourhood market garden of just over 4,100 square metres in the Venneperhout park in Nieuw-Vennep, founded in 2014 and worked by a foundation and about fifteen volunteers who grow vegetables, soft fruit, strawberries and cut flowers for the neighbourhood.
The garden has four vegetable plots, fruit bushes, strawberry beds, a flower garden for field bouquets, a cold frame and two greenhouses. Their website describes the growing as organic (op biologische wijze), without artificial fertiliser or chemical pesticides. The garden holds no organic certificate; what qualifies it here is that practice itself, land worked without synthetic inputs.
Produce is sold at the garden in season, and the money covers the year's costs, from the rent of the land and the working and manuring of the soil to seeds, plants and tools. The garden is open on Wednesday and Saturday from 10:00 to 14:00, and in summer volunteers are there almost every day, but which days and hours produce is actually on sale is not stated. The other way in is to volunteer, since after the work is done each volunteer takes home strawberries, seasonal vegetables or flowers.
All the work is done by unpaid volunteers, and the sale of what the garden grows is what pays for the next year's growing.