Bluberries and neighbours: Our Last Netherlands Event of 2025
To close the year in the Netherlands, we supported something a bit different from our regular planting days. Plukbos, a community-driven food forest in Amsterdam’s Oostelijke Eilanden, is running a winter “tuindag” this Sunday, and we donated a little over 100 plants for the occasion. Mostly blueberries. Tough, generous shrubs that can handle Dutch weather and give back year after year if you treat them right.
The project itself is tiny compared to the usual reforestation sites we work on, but it hits a nerve: neighbours working side by side, turning a corner of their area into something edible, useful, and shared. Plukbos has this playful idea of “preparing for disasters” by growing local food and helping people know each other. It sounds quirky, but there’s something solid behind it. A neighbourhood that talks, gardens and collaborates stands a better chance against storms, heatwaves, floods… or even just loneliness.
Our plants will join their growing mix of local crops, compost experiments and repurposed Christmas trees. Yes, Christmas trees. Plukbos has been rescuing them, letting them spend the summer outdoors, and giving them a second life. About half survived the heat and are now ready to return home for the holidays, lights included. After that, they can be replanted in January if cared for properly.
This Sunday, their volunteers will be putting the blueberries and other perennials in the soil, packing home-grown Ginkgo biloba tea, tending the orchard and preparing for workshops. It’s a lively, messy, very human kind of community work. You feel the energy of people who don’t wait for someone else to fix the ground under their feet.
For us, supporting a place like this is a reminder of why small-scale planting matters. Not every impact comes with glossy numbers. Sometimes it’s a few shrubs, a borrowed shovel and neighbours who bring soup. Sometimes that’s enough to shift how a community relates to its land.
Thanks to Plukbos for welcoming us in their ecosystem. And if you’re near Amsterdam this weekend, they’re opening the garden between 11:00 and 17:00. There’s lunch, there’s a tour if you ask, and there’s always something growing.
