The shared garden of Uzes, at Mas Careiron

Covering "25 individual plots of 50 m2 each, known as Camille's garden, and a collective part of 1,500 m2, called Alain's plot", the Shared Gardens of Uzès are above all a solidarity initiative.

Open to everyone, they are a "place to learn about eco-gardening, a green space where members can learn and pass on their knowledge of vegetables, fruit...", thanks to a "dynamic association in which organic farming is an essential value".

LET'S HAVE AN ECOLOGICAL VISIT

Created in September 2013 with the help of the former director of the hospital Mas Careiron, who wanted to open his establishment to the outside world, the Shared Gardens of Uzès were originally an exclusively collective plot. Gradually, individual plots were created and then, five years ago, the gardens were extended onto the hospital's former therapeutic garden, thus offering a larger collective space to welcome the participants.

A place of sharing and learning, the gardens have evolved over time to become the ideal place to know more about growing vegetables and to receive lots of advice on how to maintain your own garden, gardening techniques, how to feed the soil that will feed later the plants, how to keep the soil alive, and so on.

Today, the Jardins Partagés d'Uzès has about fifty amateur gardeners, 25 for the individual plots and 25 members of the association, who help each other in Camille's gardens. 

A 100% organic policy

Benefiting from subsidies from French Fonds pour le Développement de la Vie Associative (FDVA), which supports innovative volunteer projects, the Jardins Partagés can also count on the help of the Truffaut Foundation.

The Fonds pour le développement de la vie associative (FDVA) was created on 30 December 2011.

The George Truffaut Foundation, for its part, was created 11 years ago.

Since then, it has "supported gardens for care, sharing, learning

and reconstruction that bring the benefits of nature to those who need it most".

Distilling with passion gardening advice, the Jardins Partagés offer courses in permaculture, with the intervention once a month of a specialist in the field.

Garden crops

Tomatoes, squash, aromatic herbs, fruit trees (peach trees, pear trees, fig trees, kiwi trees, raspberry trees... planted 3 years ago), vines, but also sweet potatoes and potatoes... Not to mention a number of flowers, peonies, dahlias, crocuses (hmm, smells like saffron don't you think?), here is an idea of what to find in the shared gardens.

Thanks to the tools and equipment on site, the gardens are cultivated every day and a collective workshop is organised on Tuesdays and Fridays, in the mornings in the summer and in the afternoons in the winter, with a single requirement for its members: to grow organic crops.

Garden projects

If the amateur gardeners of the shared gardens are full of ideas for new crops, there are also projects plane with different associations in Uzès. These include a colloration for the children of the association Les petites mains, a collaboration with the MJC or the Montessori school, and also the intention to offer activities in the gardens to residents of retirement homes.

Many thanks to Catherine Cousin for her welcome and her collaboration with this article.
The right address: Jardins Partagés d'Uzès (JPU), Mas Careiron, in Uzès, jardinpartageuzes@gmail.com.