Once we woke up, packed our belongings, and got off the
cruise ship, we headed back to our hotel in Stockholm. The weather looked a
little questionable, but that didn’t stop us! We dropped our things off and
headed off to Skogskyrkogarden (Woodland Cemetery), which is an absolutely
amazing cemetery in Stockholm. When we arrived, we were all amazed with how
green and lush all the vegetation was. Near the entrance, we came across a
meditation area for visitors to sit and be in while they are there. As we kept
exploring, the cemetery got more and more interesting. It was so different from
anything I had ever seen in the United States. It felt as if we were walking
through a forest you would see on a movie with the giant trees and unique grave
stones everywhere with gorgeous vegetation surrounding them.
After making our way through most of the cemetery, our next
stop was at some allotment gardens and community gardens called
Eriksdalslundens Kolonitradgardsforening. My main focus for this trip is
allotment gardens and community gardens, so I had been anticipating this day
the whole trip! The community gardens were just right down off the hill from
the allotment gardens, so we stopped at the allotments first. This first set of
gardens that we explored consisted of a small lawn with a lot of vegetation and
a small house on each plot. The vegetation that was grown at these allotments was
mostly just flowers, shrubs, and trees. There was not much food being grown and
harvested on the plots, but they were still beautiful! The little houses were
so quaint and cozy looking. Once again, this was something else that I had
never experienced in the United States.
After making our way through the allotments, we wondered to
the community gardens. These were also awesome. The community gardens consisted
of multiple small wooden boxed that people could grow their own food in. It was
also in a really unique location down along old abandoned railroad tracks. More
food production was taking place in these community gardens than in the allotment
gardens up the hill. It was really interesting to see what types of vegetables
and vegetation people were choosing to grow.
The last stop we made for the day was at Stockholm
University. Here we were met by a professor who taught at the university and
had a special interest in ecology and urban farming. She talked to us about how
she owned her own farm outside of the city and experimented with different
types of crops. She showed us a community garden that had just been designed
and constructed near the entrance to the campus a year ago. The community
garden was very interested to see and hear her talk about because it was
designed and built by the students in one of her courses. You could tell just
by her talking about it that she was very proud of what they had accomplished! We
all thought it was awesome how the students got to actually design and build
something on their campus.
Once we were done learning about the campus community
garden, the professor took us to another area that had more plots with
allotment gardens. This second set of allotment gardens was drastically
different than the first ones we had seen. On these plots, there was once again
a lot of vegetation and a little house. However, the house was much smaller and
it didn’t look like people actually stayed in them, unlike the gardens we saw
first. Also, in contrast to the first allotment gardens, these were full of
vegetation for harvesting. All in all, I would say it was another successful
day in Sweden!
-Ashley
