A great moment of suspense Wednesday, August 1 during the ultimate test: the removal of the soil that held until then the vault of the bread and pizza oven! The month of participatory construction has proved itself: the dome of the oven is absolutely solid!
Le Tour Alternatiba stopped at the Agrocité of Bagneux on Friday 08 June! Inhabitants, associations, elected officials and cyclists were present to celebrate this event. On the program: associative stands on ecological and social initiatives, projection and debates, bicycle repair workshop, concert and multiple exchanges on common themes!
A big thank you to CRAC, Bagneux Environnement, Mairie de Bagneux et Alternatives ValléedelaBièvre for their participation and help!
We are looking forward to welcome you at the Agrocité for the next activities and events!
RECYCLAB will be having an open door event on Friday and Saturday the 4-5 July at Colombes, boulevard d’Achères.
This Eco- Solidarity Platform introduces new strategies for the revitalisation of urban waste through ecological and socially responsible production. It is a space of co-production and work sharing between ‘makers’ of any kind (designers, architects, tinkerers, students, technologists) and a network of local actors. The space is equipped with power tools, a fablab, kitchen, offices and a large terrace under the canopy of a row of trees.
AGROCITE will also host open door events on the 5-6 July, 4-12 Rue Jules Michelet.
Come to see the garden, participate in guided walks, ateliers, discussions and score yourself a bargain in the grand trash and treasure market where nothing is lost, all is transformed! In this marketplace the currency is ‘trash’ and one person’s trash is another’s treasure! Bring along an object, whether it be a special recipe, crafts, clothes, furniture or something you’ve baked, and exchange it for another.
End of summer… the mildew has started to affect tomatoes at Agrocité.
In order to not lose them, we did a big harvest of green tomatoes before they get sick with the mildew. Conclusion: 18 kg of tomatoes were harvested!
In France, we don’t use green tomatoes very often, except to make jams. In other countries, they make tins. At Agrocité, we tested both!
Final production: around fifty pots of jam and around twenty tins.
Find the recipes for green tomato jams and tins in the section “Local Products” of the website!
Many things happened during this month of August!
Already initiated by the workshops at the beginning of the summer, the Michelet garden layout went into high gear with the start of construction in the street front. For now, this is still a wide gap, but in early 2013, three small buildings connected by a greenhouse will be ready to host activities related to urban agriculture and local culture.
Many transformations deserved a little explanation! This Saturday, so we met to discuss the second season of the Michelet garden. Sara began by presenting the project, its operation and the new steps to be adopted during the construction period. Indeed, it is necessary for the good of all gardeners as well as construction workers, to respect the limits of the construction site, defined by the red ribbon. We were able to maintain restricted access to the garden during the work, but it is provided that each meets this safety rule. It was also an opportunity to explain the functioning of toilets, set up a micro-economy from the Agrolab (crops are weighed, labeled, and sold at a low price to the people).
We ended the day with delicious potatoes cooked on the barbecue in the garden.
Another week full of changes! Taking after the collective Etc. , the network Eco-Nomadic School has had its turn of work for the Michelet garden.
Eco-Nomadic School is a class project for nomadic and temporary mutual learning and teaching practices of eco-citizens in various parts of Europe. The network, formed by four European partners, meets regularly for workshops in different countries. So it was the turn of AAA to receive the nomadic school.
They found themselves for the week:
– 4 people from FCDL of Brezoi , Romania: this structure is a foundation that promotes local development in rural areas in the Carpathian mountains.
– 4 people Myvillages , Germany, England, the Netherlands: an international network of artists, which focuses on the rural as a space and cultural production.
– 4 people of Agency , Sheffield – United Kingdom: This research center affiliated with the University of Sheffield centers its work on education as a cultural practice.
Also present were, of course, members of the AAA team, organizer of the workshop. This group of people belonging to the European network, joined a dozen volunteers, eager to learn this week, exchange practices and knowledge. We thank them for their invaluable help throughout the week.
All these people come from different backgrounds, and have shared their knowledge and skills: about gardening, carpentry, crafts, earth moving, but also other even more amazing environmental practices. How, for example, keep food fresh on site that does not have a refrigerator? We have dug a hole using the cool soil to keep the costs. Some of us have taught carpentry techniques, while others have taught us to make soup with the “weed” from the garden.
The project took over the one of the Collective Etc and we have not built new facilities, but rather filled, detailed, and completed skeletons built the previous week. There were many small sites: building the inside of dry toilets; determine the solid portions and open portions of structures, then do the cladding; strike the ground and make a ramp of drying planks for the conviviality space; do the roof of the two facilities taking into account the recovery of rainwater, build sunshades to shade on the terrace. Many small sites that allowed the completion of the modules initiated a week before.
But there was also a major initiative, a sort of thread of the week: storage site in anticipation of the construction site of the building facing the street that will begin this summer. The collected materials were sorted, prepared, then stored in the storage space at the end of the plot. The large garden plots were weeded and work has been started on the front slope.
The work of two weeks has transformed the shape of the site, and we are very happy to see the Agrocité gradually emerge on what was still a wasteland a year ago.
The 35 plots of the shared garden are all allocated, so it was time for all gardeners to meet and to discuss the management of the shared garden. Since that Saturday, that’s been done!
We had a nice time in the greenhouse, where each of gardeners showed up. Aaa was also present to relocate the shared garden and its actors in the wider strategy that is R-Urban . We were able to find solutions for the organization of irrigation, and the management of the keys. Thank you all for coming in great numbers!
March 31 was the highlight for the Michelet garden which through the official opening becomes the Agrocité , namely the first of three R-Urban project sites in Colombes. There were present were all the actors involved in the project : aaa (the coordinator), the elected officials of the Municipality of Colombes (the partners), Ms. Dubois, representative of the European program LIFE + for environmental governance, and of course the inhabitants of Colombes. This event has allowed aaa to explain the place of the Michelet site already invested by the people since early 2012, the network R-Urban in Colombes, and to show the development of the project, including the ecological prototypes presented: test system of compost heating , and a aquaponics device. The representatives of the Colombes Municipality have meanwhile confirmed their support and investment in the project. Apart from these known partners, the inauguration was the occasion of a small exhibition of local actors, which are already invested or that could take part into the R-Urban project. Attendees were able to discover the backyard of the Farm of Happiness , from Nanterre, vermicomposting explained by Yvon of Nature-Ecology (located in La Garenne-Colombes). The Wild Gardens of Audra , geographically very close to the Agrocité, were also represented, as potential actors in the R-Urban network. Finally, Extramuros Gennevilliers, and the Belgian Rotor , explained more fully the work they are undertaking in the reuse of materials, as part of the Eco-Commun# 3 to CSC Fosses Jean.
Thank you for coming many, Doves and further, for this pleasant afternoon at the Agrocité.
