• Online training has been devised by experts in natural gardening in Brittany, in order to raise awareness among the population.

  • The MOOC has met with unexpected success, already attracting more than 12,000 people.

  • The promoters of this project hope to convince amateur gardeners to come to terms with the living ecosystem and biodiversity in order to avoid the use of pesticides or fertilizers.

“There was a time when having a daisy or a dandelion in your lawn was frowned upon, as if our garden was neglected.

That the spider is dirty and scary.

You have to forget all that.

A garden should not be designed to respect aesthetic codes.

Since she started training in “natural” gardening, Hélène has been inexhaustible on the subject.

“Because I have the feeling that man has long believed himself to be above nature, that he was trying to tame it.

I feel like that has changed.

In an attempt to show another way of gardening, she agreed to take part as a volunteer in a large-scale project by becoming an actress in an online training course called “Gardening with the living”.

This "MOOC", as they are called today, is a far cry from a YouTube tutorial presented by Michel le Jardinier.

Led by the House of Consumption and the Environment (MCE) in Rennes, the free training (see box) required several years of work and months of filming.

Its objective is clear: to make biodiversity better known in order to better tame it.

And above all, prevent gardeners from using pesticides or fertilizers.

“We don't invent anything.

All the techniques that we evoke in this training, our associations have been talking about them for years.

Our challenge was to make them known, to pass them on,” explains Manon Gouget.

The MCE project manager obviously succeeded in convincing more than 12.

000 people to follow the training which remains open for registration until May 6.

"We did not expect it," admits the young woman.

#Environment 🌿 Do you have a garden or do you want to understand the biological functioning of a #garden and learn how to take care of the living?


👉 Register now and until May 6 for the #MOOC "Gardening with the living" by @mcerennes: https://t.co/LyIXGGG633 pic.twitter.com/ezL6jiuNPp

– ARS Brittany (@ArsBretagne) March 25, 2022


Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent

By clicking on "

I ACCEPT

", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners

I ACCEPT

And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.

More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.


Hosted by the network of French-speaking botanists Tela Botanica, the “Gardening with the living” training course has become, in just a few weeks, a reference for anyone who wants to understand the biological functioning of a garden.

“I plead for an observation phase.

We often want to go too fast: prune, plant, harvest.

But we ignore what already exists.

In a natural space, there is always existing life.

We must not forget it and respect it.

We need to change the image of the always well-mowed lawn and well-aligned rows of carrots,” says Laetitia Félicité.

A biodiversity educator with the Bretagne Vivante association, she pleads above all for each inhabitant to “spend more time outdoors” to maintain a capacity for wonder and contemplation.

For those who have a garden, a balcony… Or not

Designed by experts, this online training has set itself the goal of popularizing its content as much as possible, alternating videos, quizzes and experiences in the natural environment.

To remain accessible, it has even adapted to the millions of French people who do not have an individual garden, especially those living in urban areas.

“There are still a lot of misconceptions.

But when you understand how a garden works overall, you find plenty of tips for simply maintaining it,” assures Violette L'Hommedé.

The one who coordinates the actions of the Vert le jardin association is used to working in urban areas to promote composting and the need to cover the soil to prevent it from being bare.

Sometimes people don't understand why.

They have the image of the vegetable garden or well weeded flowerbeds.

It is our role to explain that mulch is essential for there to be life”.

Born in Brittany, this MOOC has already won over thousands of enthusiasts all over the planet.

As a symbol in a region where intensive agriculture is still the majority, using pesticides and fertilizers to produce more.

And if the change of model came from the little Sunday gardeners?

Planet

War in Ukraine: Will Breton agriculture deny its ecological transition to produce more?

Planet

Global warming: Insect populations are experiencing a worrying decline

  • Planet

  • reindeer

  • Gardening

  • Garden

  • Biodiversity

  • Nature

  • Animal protection

  • Agriculture

  • Brittany