In booming Berlin, Sunday gardeners face off against developers

In a green bubble away from the Berlin grind, a passionate tribe of urban gardeners has taken up the struggle against developers' bulldozers as more oases come under threat from a property boom.

Frogs croak and garden shears slice, with little else breaking the silence of the Oeynhausen "colony" of allotments on a prime slab of land in the southwest of the German capital.

But there is tension behind the calm - placards at the entrance warn: "No chance for the destruction of the gardens!"