A pastiche from afar
Along highways south of Leipzig, novice travelers (me) will see four predominate features: arrays of solar panels covering several hectares, wind turbines taller than Paul Bunyan’s big brother, innumerable cages for the hops industry because Germans love their biergartens, and vast fields of mustard.
In medieval times food was bland, so condiments made from mustard seeds were a natural additive since German grandmothers already used mustard medicinally by making a paste out of seeds for skin irritations and digestive complaints. Düsseldorf in western Germany became a mustard hub, and in 1726 entrepreneurs opened a mustard factory there.
Mustard plants are easy to grow, and, as we all know, greens are a staple for dinner in rural areas in southern United States. However, in Germany, seeds generate the revenue. In 2024, seeds plus powder, oil and paste brought in $483.5 million.
Düsseldorf is known for stronger, dark mustard and Bavarian mustard is usually sweeter.
By 2027, Germany will have tripled its investment in renewable energy sources since 2010. More than 30,000 wind turbines – onshore and offshore – are scattered across the country with southern Saxony (the area south of Leipzig) being the largest producer of wind power. Germany has also boosted developments in biomass, photovoltaics and energy storage systems.
German cities set aside land not only for large parks and riparian forests but for areas for gardening called kleingartens. Each is divided into allotments which folks can personalize. Almost all have a structure— shed, small cabin, elaborate weekend hangout— plus garden space. My hosts were offered the opportunity to purchase an allotment in need of some attention.
Most prominently featured along one fence in that allotment was the largest rhubarb plant I’ve ever seen. Around its bottom was an ostentatious circumference of leaves 20 inches wide and long, but we don’t eat that part. The petioles, (or stalks), have a tart taste and are usually cooked into pies, sometimes with strawberries. Folks who pickle everything might also pickle rhubarb stalks. Not me. I tried growing rhubarb on my rocky hillside in Madison County, and the poor specimens suffered miserably to the point I wondered whether selling rhubarb to Arkansas gardeners should be a misdemeanor. But that’s my experience. Please have your own.
Rhubarb leaves are so full of glycosides and oxalic acid, they are inedible. They resemble larger versions of a variety of chard which also grows well in kleingarten allotments. Even more common are tulips.
Tulip season ends before June, so now they are usually the showiest, most colorful flower in every garden. Tulips are tough, which you would know if you already planted them in your flowerbed. They grow wild from southern Asia over to northern Mediterranean hillsides. Tulips are self-pollinating but do not produce nectar which would attract insects. Instead, they rely on windy days and curious animals to scatter pollen among its reproductive parts.
Tulips will, however, readily cross-pollinate resulting in an opportunity for someone to count the number of tulip varieties in the world (which will have increased by the end of the count). Explaining tulip propagation and ecology is on par with teaching trigonometry, so let’s instead appreciate the pretty colors.
Leipzigers bike everywhere. All ages; seniors too. Toddlers accompany in baskets or sidecars, babies in backpacks. And locals hike and jog. Everywhere. We hiked down a path with hikers and bikers through the Leipziger Auwald, a riparian forest of 6177 acres in city limits. Down the path a ways we crossed the Elster (Magpie) River to find another pastime: racing kayaks. Full disclosure: they also drive cars and things.
On foot, by bike or across the water, locals moving forward while I moseyed along on our hike for four-and-a-half miles to a lake, and that was only a section of that path which was one of many trails in the forest… all in city limits. And still waiting for me is historic downtown where Bach played organ on Sundays and Gottfried Leibniz invented differential calculus which entertained my late teen years, but I’m a gardener now.