Day 1, Wednesday: 28.08.2024
Cecilia and I left in the morning at 6am to reach Pau, which is located in the region of New Aquitaine, the capital of the Atlantic Pyrenees department, the historical capital of Bearn since 1464, which together with Navarre constituted one of the ancient French provinces.
I should have left with Stefania, the horticulturist of the Tor Carbone garden in Rome, but unfortunately she had an impediment so Cecilia replaced her. We both come from the same urban garden, the one in the Parco d’Aguzzano. our story is similar even if it has become different over time.
We arrived in Pau in the early afternoon and after entering the house where we would be staying for the week, we went to explore the city.
We found it to be full of historical evidence, very well cared for, with great attention to the quality of life of its inhabitants, with plenty of green areas and cycle paths.
Day 2, Thursday: 29.08.2024
Today we enter the heart of our journey. In the morning we meet our ortho ‘colleagues’ from other European countries. Alissa and Suzanne from Vienna, Maria and Raul from Seville.
We meet at bus stop for Assat, a small town near Pau. In Assat, we are met by Nicolas (Piste Solidaire association) and Florence, director of CLAB (Conservatoire des Legumes Anciens du Bearn). The latter association can be defined as a study centre where, among other activities, research and training is carried out, as well as the promotion of various craft and cultural activities linked to the environment and the territory.
The appointment is at the CLAB headquarters, a very cosy place with a magnificent garden that we can call botanical because of the variety of plants present and an orchard, or rather an apple orchard with ancient species.
The CLAB area houses a conference and meeting room, where before we started our tour of the garden we watched a short video introducing us to the area where we were.
Evocative film that gave me the opportunity to immerse myself there with a less distant gaze. A good way to start the journey of experiential knowledge.
We enter the garden, which is also designed with educational paths, each plant has its label on slate and is clearly legible, and there are also audio panels in no less than 4 languages giving various types of information. I experienced its great usefulness.
Inside the garden is a pond of great beauty and poetry, which I visited several times even when it was raining.
At CLAB there were several people engaged in various activities and this made me perceive CLAB as a living, breathing place. There is also a nice professional kitchen where you could see that you cook for a lot of people for various convivial occasions.
I was struck by the presence of a large fruit press with which they prepare the apple juice and cider base that they then sell as well as enjoy during the festivals, and not only, that they organise. Both products are very good.
There is also a greenhouse where they sell the plants they grow. Wooden artefacts and other natural materials are also available for purchase to accommodate insects and small birds in the cold season.
CLAB a place that has generated in me wonder harmony, care and love.
In the afternoon, back in Pau, Nicolas proposes a cultural visit because of the rain. We visit Henry IV’s castle, which is also very well maintained.
After the visit, we go to see the first urban community garden in a suburban area of Pau.
Jardin partagè Multivert, this is its name, is located in a multifunctional green area surrounded by buildings, a kind of square. The area has several critical issues and urban garden project aims to rebuild the social fabric by fostering relationships, allowing people to self-produce healthy food and enhancing the relationship with nature. The garden project is by the Vivre Ma Ville association. The garden is located in the Saragozza neighbourhood and is relatively recent, about 2 years old.
After a short time that we were walking around the various gardens, Mohamed and Alexis, two vegetable gardeners, arrived and enthusiastically told us about their experience. Although they lived in the same building, they did not know each other and became great friends at the vegetable garden. Each of them has a vegetable garden of about 30 square metres, inside which is a small wooden bungalow for storing tools and something else. The roof of the bungalow has a gutter that ends in a large plastic container for collecting rainwater, which is used to irrigate the garden (good practice).
The use of the garden that Mohamed and Alexis make is quite different: the former goes there to relax, to listen to the silence, to plant moderately, he also goes there with his children and family, for the children it is a garden to play in, there is also a tent created with sheets, their shelter.
Alexis goes there alone and with her mum, who has made the garden colourful with all the flowers she has planted. The garden is very cultivated and there are lots of vegetables.
Beautiful to hear them tell their experience, their eyes light up.
The project was successful, achieving the goal of bringing people together and getting them to work together, creating solidarity, creating community. They even invited us to a party they had organised at the garden, where everyone would bring food. There are communal spaces in the vegetable garden where everyone has worked to create them: a gazebo with a table where they can gather, a play area with all the board games stored in a cupboard made of wood, also by them. Each vegetable garden is designed for a group and not for an individual.
Nice experience, there is an atmosphere of sharing. This garden encourages the social fabric by creating friendly, caring and solidarity relationships.
Day 3, Friday: 30.08.2024
This morning we go to see two urban and community gardens.
The first vegetable garden is Jardin Guynemer, also located in a suburban area. In the Foirail district of Pau, the vegetable garden has found a place on an abandoned and untended state land. As soon as one enters the garden area, one is greeted by a beautiful, centrally located gazebo that was designed by an architect, a member of the garden, and built by the community of market gardeners. This beautiful structure is used for various initiatives, such as assemblies, aperitifs… thus fostering the ‘cultivation’ of social ties.
We met a number of women who have their own vegetable garden, one of , Michelle, acted as our guide. She is a kind and friendly lady who told us that the vegetable garden is an opportunity for many to relax, meet each other and be . Several of the gardeners are of foreign origin and grow herbs and vegetables from their own land, in fact we noticed plants that we did not know.
There is also an area dedicated to children with a playhouse full of toys, again made by members of the garden association from reclaimed wood.
There is also a very well organised composting area: there are three wooden crates to follow the various stages of compost maturation (good practice).
The association’s objectives include: environmental education; creating a safe and healing space; sustainable urbanisation; and fostering intergenerational dialogue.
The creation of this garden garden has also prevented the area from being for building, giving it back to the neighbourhood community.
It has become a place to meet, to play, to work, to share. A space dedicated to beauty.
Having said goodbye to Michelle and the other women gardeners, we took bus to the Hameau neighbourhood to get to know a complex reality where there are no less than three areas dedicated to community gardens, although each organised differently.
The project was taken care of by a youth association, MJC Berlioz, a non-profit organisation with the ‘oldest’ history, since 1979. The association has a well-designed and very rich website: mjcberlioz.org.
A place dedicated to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood where it is located, Humeau, where a community of artists also lives and has contributed to the creation of the large space.
The park is divided into two parts, both very large, where there are two buildings for association and workshop activities, of which there are many (training courses for young people, conferences, workshops, cultural meetings and a young talent festival).
Anyone can propose activities to be carried out together. In the youth area there are various play and sports activities, in the common area we admired the guest house built on a majestic tree. We took a walk, enjoying some excellent white peaches, in the shared vegetable garden tended mainly by a group of elderly people.
The vegetable gardens are just one part of the many activities and initiatives proposed by the association.
In contrast to the other gardens, here it was a tour led by a member of the association, which really does an admirable job, enlivening the area with a lively cultural life.
It all stems from a neighbourhood collective that was formed to collectively respond to the difficulties and build a more harmonious neighbourhood.
“Passer d’un quartier vivable a un quartier vivant.
In the afternoon we visited another community garden: Jardin Partagé Marsan.
This is located along a canal, Canal Marsan, connected to Pau’s most important river, Gave de Pau, and within a park.
We were greeted in the small garden area with a table set with herbal teas and water, Alissa and Suzy (the girls from Vienna) had brought biscuits, so talking about the garden with four gardeners we had a snack.
The gardens are cultivated like small gardens, you can tell it is a meeting place, the people we met were all great.
In the outdoor space, i.e. inside the park, the horticulturists look after collective and educational benches, but the massive presence of rabbits spoils their work and they regret it. They also have a seed bank and an orchard.
Inside the garden there is an air of great serenity even though they feel frustrated because of the rabbits.
The public and shared area is somewhat neglected, participation is likely to be a little low. Each vegetable garden is a story in itself, but one understands that through the garden one reconstructs the web of relationships, the garden also creates community through plant care.
Day 4, Saturday: 31.08.2024
Today we take the train back to Assat, to CLAB’s headquarters.
First day of the association’s annual celebration, which will have its highlight tomorrow.
After a festive welcome, we start wandering around the beautiful CLAB venue. The kitchen is abuzz with the preparation of lunch. The large electric press was working non-stop, producing the delicious juice from the apples in the orchard, which we drank during the meal.
There were the members of the association, the volunteers who did their work with great passion. We all ate together, an excellent rice salad with beets, goat’s cheese from a local farmer and, to finish, some sweet crepes, after having prepared a large table under two magnificent trees that provided us with refreshing and fragrant shade.
Eating together gave us opportunity to get to know each other better.
In the afternoon there were literary meetings with book presentations which I did not attend as I do not know French, I spent the time walking in the garden and contemplating everything around me, very beautiful and harmonious.
We would have liked to help but we didn’t really know what to do, however the day was very pleasant.
Day 5, Sunday: 01.09.2024
The big day of the festival: many stalls were set up with producers selling their produce from the earth, vegetables and plants, cheese, honey, biscuits, spirulina, chestnut products, seeds, bread, and among the various stalls was Stephanie’s which offered aperitifs made from plants.
Various craftsmen were present. I was ‘bewitched’ by a man weaving branches of various plants, for example willow, to make baskets and other objects, great skill in his hands. There was also a girl who made jewellery from legumes and lamps from gourds as well as small macramé works.
There was a festive and lively air that was very inviting.
In the meantime we managed to get small tasks, for example preparing what was needed to set the table, which made us feel more involved.
A number of associations were also present, including ‘La Societé mycologique du Bearn, which had set up a stand that looked like a painting, very nice.
It was possible to attend lectures, one on grains which was very interesting, and literary meetings. At the end of the morning, Alissa and Suzanne, the girls from Vienna, presented their projects.
Suzy told us that she is part of an association, Polylogue, that helps and supports the creation of urban community gardens. She personally contributed to the creation of a vegetable garden in a rather small plot near a railway. The garden has completely free access and there is no organisational structure to manage it.
Through a photo album, Alissa told us about a temporary collective garden, i.e. a plot of land that would be built on after a few years. The vegetable garden became an opportunity to organise many cultural events, including small art installations, and was attended by many people from different generations.
I marvel at the biodiversity witnessed by community gardens, very fascinating. Places of ‘rebellion’ against the standardisation of consumer society.
After eating a good vegetarian meal, the presentation of projects, which we, the small international group, brought from our countries, continued.
Raul , professor of geography at the Pablo De Olavide University in Seville (CLAB’s European partner), gave a talk on community gardens in Seville. He told us about a very interesting experience regarding a very run-down area in Seville, which thanks to a project that included a large area dedicated to community gardens was reborn, offering the inhabitants of the neighbourhoods in that area a place to meet, where they could produce healthy food. Moreover, by restoring ruined buildings, they have also created a school of arts and crafts. All this within the Miraflores Park, the largest park in Seville at 90 hectares.
Cecilia, from Rome, presented the garden we both came from, told its history and the differentiation between individual gardens and the collective synergistic garden within it.
I spoke about the garden going out of its boundaries to reach school children. Fortunately Cecilia translated the presentation into French.
The day was very rich and full of impressions, the party a success, ending with a beautiful group photo.
Day 6, Monday: 02.09.2024
The grand tour of the gardens has come to an end, this morning we meet in a Mexican café to discuss best practices and the experience we have had during this very inspiring week.
I was happy to have met some fantastic fellow travellers, who were ironic and intelligent and with whom there was a lively exchange despite the fact that I am very poorly versed in languages.
