Our historic gardens and their planting

Museum gardener Matthias Schuh will be happy to show you our historic gardens, while farmer Michael Grebe can tell you about our historic livestock breeds.


The agricultural garden for explorers

The agricultural garden welcomes visitors to the museum before they have actually entered the grounds, providing information on heritage and modern varieties of fruit, animal husbandry and the Rosengarten Regional Park. In addition to this, the garden also provides overflow parking for visitors to the museum and the Regional Park in the rural surroundings of the orchard meadow. 

Most of the 300 trees in the agricultural garden are tall varieties which are very rarely grown on plantations today. We place great value on the ecological diversity of the 70 different varieties, which serve as a living gene archive to ensure the continued survival of heritage plants. These regional varieties are perfectly adapted to the North German climate and local soil conditions. Ongoing climate change means that this gene pool could be very useful to fruit growers and breeders in future. The museum’s fruit trees comply with the strict guidelines of the Bioland organic farming organisation – all our apples, cherries and pears are produced without the use of chemicals. The agricultural garden is also Germany’s first organically certified car park. Employees with disabilities, who work at the open-air museum in cooperation with the Lebenshilfe Lüneburg-Harburg organisation, care for the trees and harvest the fruit they produce.

Sponsors:

  • Landesamt für Geoinformation und Landentwicklung Niedersachsen (LGLN)
  • Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU)
  • Niedersächsische Bingo-Umweltstiftung
  • Landkreis Harburg
  • Gemeinde Rosengarten
  • Klosterkammer Hannover
  • Förderfonds Hamburg/Niedersachse
Landwirtschaftlicher Entdeckergarten im Freilichtmuseum am Kiekeberg - Illustration Silke Wulf
Kinder gärtnern im Landwirtschaftlichen Entdeckergarten im Freilichtmuseum am Kiekeberg (Foto FLMK)

Shepherd Ast's garden

Who was Shepherd Ast? He was a well-known faith healer from Radbruch who lived from 1848 to 1921 and used his knowledge of medicinal herbs to help many people and animals. You can see the herbs which Shepherd Ast used to make his remedies here at the museum. They have been planted in raised beds in the Shepherd Ast's garden.

Der Schäfer-Ast-Garten im Freilichtmuseum am Kiekeberg. (Bild FLMK)

Lüneburg country garden

Our Lüneburg country garden is a living genetic archive which is used to rescue tasty heritage varieties. It is also where we grow our ‘Apples of the year’ and a wide range of heritage crop plants. Growing and using these varieties allows us to preserve fruit and vegetables which have always been typical of the Elbe marshes and the heath region for the future.

Im Lüneburger Landgarten im Freilichtmuseum am Kiekeberg werden regionale Obst- und Gemüsesorten erhalten. (Bild FLMK)
Ein lebendiges Genarchiv - der Lüneburger Landgarten am Kiekeberg. (Bild FLMK)

Pringens Hof farm garden

The kitchen garden at Pringens Hof farm includes all the vegetables which were typically grown in the heath region in the 19th century. These were predominantly pulses and potatoes, although strawberries, leeks, celeriac and turnips were also grown. Cabbage was, and still is, a typical winter vegetable in the region. In line with this, we grow brown kale, a historic form of today's kale, in the Pringens Hof farm garden . Its taste is bitterer than its modern relative, which no longer contains the healthy bitter compounds. 

Vor allem Hülsenfrüchte und Kartoffeln wachsen im Garten am Pringens Hof. (Bild FLMK)
Mit dem Garten am Pringens Hof ist ein typischer Nutzgarten am Kiekeberg beheimatet. (Bild FLMK)

The fisherman's house market garden

At the beginning of the 20th century the inhabitants of the Elbe marshes ran micro-businesses, growing vegetables to supply the nearby city of Hamburg. The Elbe river provided a quick, cheap method of transport. The market gardeners loaded their produce onto small barges which travelled along the Ilmenau and Elbe rivers directly to Hamburg's market.

For many years, the produce grown to supply the city was known as ‘Hamburg market vegetables’ and our market garden includes many of these vegetables. Varieties such as ‘Hamburger-Markt-Herbst’ peas; ‘Hamburger- Markt-Schwert’ runner beans or ‘Vierländer-Blut-Rhabarber’ rhubarb all thrive in the garden. It was possible to grow such an abundance of produce thanks to the fertile soils of the marshes, however farmers in the area also faced the challenge of irrigating and draining their fields. During their visit to the museum, visitors can discover exactly how the various historic drainage systems worked.

Der Erwerbsgarten am Fischerhaus im Freilichtmuseum am Kiekeberg. (Bild FLMK)
Der Erwerbsgarten am Fischerhaus dokumentiert den Anabu des "Hamburger Marktgemüses". (Bild FLMK)

Nissen hut garden

The post-war years were a time when housing was in very short supply. Feeding the many people who had lost their homes and/or were refugees was also a challenge. One solution was to provide people living in Nissen huts with allotments, where they could grow certain types of vegetables. To restrict the spread of potato blight gardeners were not allowed to keep seed potatoes from the harvest. They were only supposed to use seed potatoes provided by the authorities. Growing tobacco was also forbidden, however in the face of the hunger and deprivations most people suffered, very few of them complied with these bans.

Tobacco, cabbages, potatoes, rhubarb and black- and redcurrants were typical fruit and vegetables grown on Nissen hut allotments. The tobacco plants could grow to 1.80 metres in height and their large leaves were dried on washing lines before being exchanged on the black market for more useful things.

Matthias Schuh erklärt Kindern den Garten an der Nissenhütte im Freilichtmuseum am Kiekeberg. (Bild FLMK)
In der Nachkriegszeit waren Gärten, wie dieser an der Nissenhütte, für die Meschen überlebenswichtig. (Bild FLMK)