What does “Schrebergarten” mean in German?

A Schrebergarten is a small plot rented from the city or a gardening association — rows of potatoes, tomatoes, and cucumbers in a fenced-off patch of urban green. Close to a million Germans garden in one. The word honours Dr. Moritz Schreber (1808–1861), a Leipzig physician; a gardening association was founded in his memory in 1864, three years after his death, and the plots followed. “Allotment” is the closest English word, but carries none of the cultural weight.

In the clip, the gardener leads her chicks down the rows — potatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, currants — and introduces the rooster Hubert, casually calling it mein Schrebergarten. That word does a lot of work: it signals a whole way of spending weekends, a community of plot-holders, and an institution so embedded in German life it has its own federal law (Bundeskleingartengesetz). Schrebergärten began as “poor gardens” for city families who needed to grow food; today they are as likely to host a barbecue as a harvest.