Holland

Joyce Fetteroll took this photo of a wheelbarrow against a volkshuis near Leiden (a house in a volkstuin). I like the way the sun lit up the red wheel, and the wooden shoes on the potting shelf add beautifully to the scene.

A volkstuin is hard to understand. It's a place where each family has a combination allotment (strip garden in a common area, not on the property of a home), but these have an added feature: a summer cottage in which the owner can stay overnight, either just on weekends, or occasionally, or for all the summer months. Owners cannot allow others to stay in their stead, nor can anyone stay year round.

Our host's cottage had a lawn and a hedge, and a trampoline for their children.

The lots are not as long and narrow as allotments are in the UK. People lease the land, but own the little houses, I think. They don't reapply each year, as UK residents do for allotments.