Many children today no longer know that cherries don't grow in plastic bowls and rhubarb doesn't grow on a tree. Or what a compost heap is. Many of them simply lack direct experience of nature. Their perception comes from second-hand sources – the internet, television or other media. Fortunately, there are educational gardening lessons. Because the less contact children have with nature, the more important the educational garden becomes. It offers children the opportunity to get to the bottom of biological and ecological phenomena. Here they can help shape and mould nature, plant something themselves and, of course, harvest it. The University of Erfurt offers an educational garden course for prospective teachers so that they can be competently accompanied. Incidentally, this is unique in Germany. Here, students have the opportunity to acquire specialised scientific and didactic skills.