
Tomatoes fresh from the grave
As is well known, tastes differ, and this also applies to the planting of graves. In addition to flowers and bushes, vegetable plants have also been growing in the Protestant cemetery in Vienna's Matzleinsdorf for five years. Not everyone likes that!

Urban gardening has been trendy for a while. This involves using fallow land in urban areas to grow flowering and useful plants. The cultivated areas can be mini-plots allocated by the city or self-conquered areas such as traffic islands. In the latter case it is called guerrilla gardening. However, that is not all, for the ways of the Lord are unfathomable!
The trained gardener Walter Pois took over the management of the Matzleinsdorf Protestant Cemetery in Vienna's Favoriten district in 2006. 8,600 graves are maintained on the site, although around 1,500 of them are empty. The trend is moving away from sealed graves with granite slabs and towards a more natural version with plant growth. “Being close to nature is part of the cemetery,” Pois said at the beginning of the year .
How did the idea of growing vegetables come about?
Graves are becoming increasingly neglected or are being abandoned when there are no longer any relatives there and the reference is missing. Nevertheless, these graves should be preserved with dignity. “Both the souvenir of the gravestones, which are often very beautiful and artistically designed, as well as the surface on them, which is not allowed to weather but is used, cared for and preserved with dignity,” explained Walter Pois in a recent radio interview.
“Gardening” at the cemetery began in 2017. At the beginning, employees were given the opportunity to plant edibles on two abandoned graves. “Our staff does this too and takes great pleasure in harvesting and enjoying a few tomatoes, cucumbers or peppers for lunch or dinner.” Or taking them home and using them there. What is currently growing on the graves? “You can plant everything: from spices to herbs to tomatoes – in Vienna we call them tomatoes – salads, cabbage vegetables. We also have currants on it. Anything is conceivable.”
Favoriten is one of the districts where Vienna continues to grow. Areas for growing gardens are rare there. This may also be why some of the relatives began to plant berries and vegetables on the graves. Today these areas can be leased for a small fee: 75 euros, the amount of an annual grave rent. 20 graves are used in this way. So there is still more than enough space for more hobby gardeners!
At the beginning, the cemetery visitors were often skeptical, but now the opinion is consistently positive. “Of course there are a few critical voices who approach this cautiously. They say: Can you eat this? Does that taste good? It's not mine now. I'll take a look at this. “For the most part, we receive very good responses and positive feedback,” says Pois.
Are vegetables from the cemetery organic? Logical!
But is eating vegetables from the grave really safe? “It's not like you plant something on it right after the funeral. The graves remain as graves for at least 10 years after the first burial. In fact, it takes much longer until the graves are released for planting: at least 15-20 years after the last burial. “Humans have passed so far away or have passed over into nature that there are no remains left, apart from the bones.” The director of the cemetery is also certain that you can’t feel anything in terms of taste. “We eat the vegetables, they are wonderful, they are organic, there is no plant protection at the cemetery.”
In a densely built-up city, cemeteries serve as a green lung and a refuge for many animal species, as the Universum documentary “Long live the Central Cemetery” impressively demonstrated. The Matzleinsdorf Cemetery is also aware of this responsibility. “We are trying very hard to create awareness that we are a very important ecological area in the big city.” Pois has set up insect hotels and nesting areas for animals. Beehives on site produce their own honey. of the cemetery habitat , but that is another story.
Sources:
https://www.lebensraum-friedhof.at/
https://www.domradio.de/audio/ein-interview-mit-walter-pois-verwaltung-des-evangelischen-friedhof-matzleinsdorf
https://www .derstandard.at/story/2000133370605/tomaten-auf-dem-gottesacker
You might also be interested in: Are there really such colorful tomatoes?
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