Tuinderij Waalwortel

Tuinderij Waalwortel is a self-harvest garden (zelfoogsttuin) of about 2,000 square metres behind the former Sancta Maria boarding house in Hees, Nijmegen-West, where two growers have raised vegetables and herbs for up to a hundred harvesting members since March 2023.

They grow more than fifty kinds of vegetables and six herbs, and members pick around five or six different vegetables a week as the season moves. The beds are no-dig: they are built on top of the existing soil from cardboard, wood chips and compost, so the soil life is left undisturbed, and their website says nothing is used against pests and no artificial fertiliser, only water and compost. The garden calls its plants biologisch but holds no organic certificate; what qualifies it here is the growing itself, the undisturbed soil fed with compost alone.

Membership is the only way in. The season runs from May to November and members may harvest every day between 9:00 and 17:00; you pay a fixed amount per adult for the year, half for children aged six to twelve. A free trial pick can be booked through their website, and visitors who are not members are welcome on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10:00 to 17:00 and on Sundays from 12:00 to 17:00.

The harvest is shared equally among the members, and picking extra to freeze or preserve is not part of the arrangement.