Learning by doing and by not doing: Experiences of a learning community's garden

This article will recount the experience of a university community garden,  Mãos na Terra, on the island of Madeira. It will contextualize some of the systemic issues affecting the island from a social and environmental perspective before focusing, in particular, on the crisis currently impacting local agricultural production. The concepts of agroecology and syntropic agriculture are introduced as a possible approach and way of envisioning a garden from a more sensitive, regenerative, and less extractive perspective. The article will focus on the the idea of a garden as a learning community, where slowing down and resting play a central role, while at the same time exploring topics such as composting, agrobiodiversity and the delicate relationship between food, cultivation and health.  It will then reflect on what ‘transition’ might mean for those who volunteer in the garden, what it might mean to be a community in a public space such as a garden, and what cooperation might entail.