Generatiounsgaart Beefort

Participation opportunities

Throughout the year, activities for schools and the general public will be organised.

What’s needed

Objectives

The primary mission of the Generatiounsgaart project is to re-learn the language of nature while training responsible citizens for present and future generations. In transition to sustainable development, the common objective is to make humans aware of the complexity of the issues at stake in our society and to enable them to acquire the techniques, know-how, values and skills that will enable them to live in harmony with nature.The project is open to anyone who is not a member of the European Union and who is not a member of the European Commission. The project is open to people of all ages who are curious about reconnecting with nature by bringing together young and old in order to encourage an intergenerational exchange and to return us to the earth.

The aim of this garden is to give everyone the opportunity to reconnect with nature in a playful and participatory way with the aim of developing a keen sense of our natural environment. The garden aims to encourage the step towards a food transition and focuses on raising awareness of the fundamental themes of permaculture and organic market gardening. In addition, the project envisages the regeneration of the soil, avoiding its erosion and promoting the biodiversity of the land in order to reconstitute a sustainable and natural habitat.

The vision of this garden for the coming years will be to operate 100% independently so that all the systems installed can function in a closed loop.

Impact

Permaculture principles applied in the Generatiounsgaart
This garden works according to the principles of permaculture. The term "permaculture" is a contraction of "permanent" and "agriculture". It can also be understood as "cultivation of permanence". It is a design system that creates resilient and sustainable relationships between humans and the rest of the natural world. The concept of permaculture allows us to observe and discover the cycles of nature in order to rebuild its natural balance in a sustainable and ecological approach. In the respect of our natural resources we work here actively for the protection of nature and the environment. The garden not only teaches us how to grow our vegetables, but also encourages the transformation of these vegetables in order to reconnect us to the earth as a source of nourishment.

In his Introduction to Permaculture, Bill Mollison writes that "the goal is to develop ways of living and operating that do not harm the environment and are economically viable, that sustain themselves, that do not abuse humans or living things, that do not pollute the earth".

At the heart of permaculture are the interactions between the different actors: permaculture uses the characteristics of plants and animals and combines them with those of the site and the facilities to create a cultivated ecosystem on the smallest possible area that can sustain life, whether in the city or in the countryside. The system aims to create cultivated ecosystems through human intervention, producing more food than is normally found in nature for humans and animals.

Permaculture is based on three fundamental principles: caring for the land, caring for people, and sharing the surplus fairly. My approach will be based on the 12 permaculture principles: conceptual tools that, when used together, allow us to creatively reinvent our environment and behaviour in a world of declining energy and resources.

In this garden, biodiversity and soil regeneration will be among our primary concerns. The association between the different plants as well as the design of the beds will help us to maintain an essential diversity. In addition, we will take care of the life of the soil in order to enrich it with organic matter that is not artificial or chemical. It goes without saying that we work with nature instead of against it. We do not use pesticides or chemical fertilisers. Each element in the garden has its specific role and interacts with the other elements around it. Linked and interconnected with each other, these elements can never be looked at in isolation but are presented in a global context.

Target audience

schools, general public, all generations are welcome

Challenges and learning successes

Over time
Since January 2019, three plots of a 50-ar orchard (1/2 ha) have been transformed into a vegetable orchard, or forest garden, containing a greater diversity of trees and plants growing on different levels (or strata). This type of cultivation was designed to provide, on a small area, an intensive production of diversified food as well as a source of organic matter for multiple uses. The majority of the uncultivated area has been transformed into a productive garden. A biotope of a large herb spiral with a pond was created, from which various aquatic species can be observed. In two years, nature has completely changed and the systems that have been set up are working independently.