In early episodes of Scrubs, (which was not a profoundly meaningful TV show, but there is a place in my heart for a good sitcom) JD buys a half-acre of land, but doesn't have enough money to build a house on it. He only has a front porch. I feel a little bit like this when I go out to the garden:
Andrew, Katja and 3 year old Juno have moved to the south of Germany, where the sun shines more and the mountains are closer. But the garden still belongs to them. Brian and I are garden-sitting until they sell the place. Sure, we are cutting the grass and picking the tomatoes, but the most important part of garden-sitting is the sitting. We need to make the place look occupied. The garden Kolonie, which sounds like a condo association, has a lot of rules, because it is made up of Germans. One of these rules is that all garden owners must live in Hannover. No vacant lots and no absentee landlords. We need the garden to look lived-in (or sat in) for the next couple of months.
When Andrew and Katja are ready to sell the garden, they will have no trouble finding a buyer. The couple across the path is drooling over it already. They have a garden of their own, but ours (I'll just call it ours for now) is bigger, or better situated, or something like that. So they have been sort of loitering around, awkwardly. They are from East Germany, which automatically makes them a little weird. People from the West consider the Osties to be anything from quirky to socially inept to rednecks or stuck in the 90s.
The day we came to say goodbye to our friends, another couple was checking out the garden. They are both dentists, with one kid and one on the way. Probably the Kolonie would approve of them. Except they are jerks. The day that Andrew and Katja moved, the dentists contacted the Kolonie and started making arrangements to take over the garden. I imagine it will be all the talk at the next board meeting.
I can only hope that the garden neighbors are on that board. Our garden shares a fence with the perfectly manicured lawn of Olli and Susanne. They are in the garden every day - Olli shirtless and trimming the grass with scissors, Susanne in her bikini tending to the flowers. I'd put them in their early 60s and they have become Juno's adopted grandparents. They are very sad to see her go. We made a trade on Sunday - I gave them tomatoes and grapes in exchange for miniature plums called Zwetschgen (Just look at all the consonants in that word and tell me that German is not a hard language). I have not yet asked what they think of the dentists.
Of course, this is not the garden's first brush with drama. Andrew and Katja bought it in partnership with two friends, in a socialist arrangement that Karl Marx would be proud of. But as the East Germans across the way could probably tell you, socialism is a great idea that falls apart eventually. Apparently one of the former comrades, now living in Australia, wants to remove a tree he planted years ago. Who is going to dig it up, and where will they put it? Don't ask me. My job is just to sit there.
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