A few days ago a friend asked me to take some pictures of her garden. It’s a typical, if unusually well-kept Polish działka; a small garden where families in the town and cities are supposed to relax, socialise, grow fruits and veggies. In

Warsaw, large areas are cordoned off as Rodinny ogród działkowy (ROD), where (mostly) old people are tending to their little gardens and sometimes houses. I have very mixed feelings about those RODs. On the one hand they are green oases in otherwise very built-up areas. The risk is that if the land was not used for RODs it would quickly be appropriated by developers for the new housing complexes that are growing like weeds in every free space. However, although one of the goals of the RODs is to “create conditions to provide access to green spaces for local communities”, the areas are fenced off, and only garden owners can enter the areas. This leaves precious little green space that is truly accessible for the public.

In any case, my friends garden is a very nicely kept piece of land. At this time of the year brimming with vegetables and flowers.