The Field Guideby Moss & MarrowPluktuin Meraki
- Organic methods: no synthetic pesticides or fertiliser, not certified
Pluktuin Meraki is a community vegetable garden on the Sint Hubertusweg in Beek-Ubbergen, a few minutes from Nijmegen, where members work the land together and grow vegetables and fruit on raised Hügelkultur beds.
The produce is grown unsprayed, and their website says they work as far as possible without pesticides or synthetic fertiliser, leaving room between the crops for insects, birds and soil life. Their website calls the crops organic (biologisch), though the garden holds no organic certificate; what qualifies it here is the unsprayed growing on Hügelkultur beds.
There is no shop, so you join in one of three ways: rent your own plot of 100 m², become a meeplukker (harvest member) who comes once a week from May to November to fill a crate with whatever is ripe, or collect a weekly box of seasonal vegetables and fruit at the garden. Collection and picking times are Thursday and Friday from 16:00 to 18:00 and Saturday from 10:00 to 17:00. The box and the harvest membership are paid by the year at three price levels, so members who can pay more make room for others. You sign up through the form on their website, and a visit first can be arranged by message.
Colleges and universities in the region are researching the garden's biodiversity, so the effect of the way they grow can be measured.