WWOOF Germany · Experience Report A WWOOF weekend in Stemwede – featuring potatoes and a skeletal cat skull
April 2026 · 11 participants · Stemwede, North Rhine-Westphalia
Eleven people, one farm, a weekend full of WWOOFing and warmth: our WWOOF gathering in mid-April in Stemwede was exactly what this format is all about – hands-on gardening, carried by a true sense of community.
From Friday evening to Sunday midday we dug, shovelled, sawed and planted on a wonderful farm in Stemwede. Our host welcomed us warmly, took great care of us, and shared an seemingly inexhaustible wealth of gardening knowledge along the way. Her cooking was every bit as impressive as her beds.
What we accomplished
At the end of the weekend we did a tour of the farm together and presented everything we had achieved. The list speaks for itself:
🌿 Thuja hedge treated – Sprayed with horsetail brew, which strengthens fungal resistance through natural silicic acid.
🌱 Beds prepared – Weeded, topped with compost and manure, mulched – and planted with artichokes, broccoli, lettuce and hollyhocks.
🏡 Polytunnel cleaned – Outer walls scrubbed, floor cleared of last year’s remains. Light now shines through freely again.
🍇 Raspberries pruned – Old canes removed, only one-year-old wood remains – that’s where the plant bears its fruit.
🥔 Potatoes planted – 4 varieties in 18 rows, fertilised with compost, using a Peruvian highland hoe.
🪵 Firewood sawn – A huge stack of wood – including an old cherry tree – cut down to burnable pieces.
🫐 Acid bed tended – Sawdust and hay spread around kiwis and blueberries to promote the acidic soil conditions they need.
🌳 Fig tree freed – Underground shoots removed, heavy stone slabs lifted to reach the root system – a full day’s work in itself.
While preparing the potato bed we even found some surprises left over from the previous year: a few carrots and parsnips that the soil had preserved over winter – and that were still perfectly edible.
Garden tips to take home
Anyone who spends a weekend on a farm like this goes home with more than just tired muscles. Three particularly useful pieces of advice we’ll remember:
Tip 1 – Fungal protection: Horsetail brew doesn’t just protect hedges. Tomatoes, which are especially prone to grey mould after side-shooting, also benefit from a treatment.
Tip 2 – Keeping slugs away: Coffee grounds placed around lettuce plants keep slugs at bay – and improve the soil at the same time.
Tip 3 – Pruning raspberries correctly: Raspberries only fruit on one-year-old wood. Older canes can be identified by their side shoots – and can go.
What makes these weekends special
WWOOF thrives on moments you can’t plan. Like when a bed carefully cleared of stinging nettles yields a skeletal cat skull as a trophy, which is solemnly presented to the host.
The whole proceedings were accompanied by Piet, the farm’s tomcat, who followed us with a watchful eye from project to project – a quiet, fluffy supervisor.
Our host even found time to plant barberries herself alongside everything else she was doing. That she managed this in the middle of hosting, cooking and offering expert advice impressed us greatly.
“Three days with your hands in the soil together – and you know each other like old friends.”
Thank you for this wonderful weekend. To our host, who gave so much. And to all eleven participants who together made it something truly special.
This weekend was sponsored by the Postcode Lottery. We thank everyone who supported us by purchasing tickets.
About the German Postcode Lottery
The German Postcode Lottery is a social lottery, meaning that at least 30 percent of all ticket sales go to projects promoting equal opportunities, social cohesion, and nature and environmental protection. Since its founding in 2016, the Postcode Lottery has supported approximately 6,500 social and green projects in Germany with more than €325 million. A board of advisors, chaired by Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, decides on the selection of projects. Further information is available at: https://www.postcode-lotterie.de/guter-zweck.
