The very first Vegetable Garden World Cup! An international competition promoting healthy eating, sustainable living, nature and school! A project for young people the world over! A global competition open to schools - from kindergarten to high school - and youth organizations.
La Coupe du Monde du potager est un programme sous le haut patronage
De Monsieur Emmanuel MACRON,
Président de la République française
A concrete project for the ecological transition!
Creating a kitchen garden in schools gives children a chance to discover nature and healthy, organic, local food. More than ever, we need to raise awareness of where our food comes from. A school vegetable garden helps children understand how food grows, and encourages children and their parents to adopt more sustainable eating habits. Vegetable gardens also help to make school grounds more natural, less concrete. Schools with vegetable gardens have more plants and biodiversity, and are able to withstand higher temperatures. Even a small vegetable garden and a few trees can provide cooler, shaded areas!
In 2020, our non-profit organization created the Coupe de France du potager, in which 20,000 children across the country took part and enjoyed a fantastic educational experience! Our non-profit organization Landestini is now extending the project worldwide and launching the very first Coupe du Monde du Potager! Schools from kindergarten to high school can take part, each in their own category! This global competition will motivate teachers and children all over the world, starting with the USA, to create and maintain a vegetable garden in their school. While it's a global competition, it's also a group project, with guidance, advice and a team of experts from our association to help students, teachers and parents with their vegetable garden. When we teach children about sustainable food consumption and environmental protection, everyone wins!
Since 2021, the Coupe de France du potager is :
Calendar
Over 10 prizes to be won!
Biodiversity is one of the keys to a healthy kitchen garden, and the kitchen garden is a tool for regenerating biodiversity! The care and attention you give to biodiversity is therefore an important criterion in the Coupe de France du potager.
Biodiversity in the vegetable garden means, for example, visible insects and animals, but also bacteria and fungi in the soil. To protect and encourage all these species, you can rely on a diversity of plants to shelter and feed them, or install nesting boxes or a hedge...
Water, that precious, essential and vital resource!
However, summer droughts, winter hydrological deficits and the resulting water shortages have a major impact on the quantities of water available for watering your plants.
That's why it's important, right from the outset of your vegetable garden project, to put in place measures to preserve water resources while ensuring that your garden continues to th rive. Favoring water-efficient plants, recovering rainwater, adopting an economical watering system such as drip irrigation or recycling wastewater are justsome of the small steps you can take to help preserve water resources .
Reserved for vegetable gardens of less than 6m2: even those installed in containers!
Chickens are fun! But they're also great allies in the vegetable garden!
They get rid of all your organic waste (and even slugs!), they bring excellent fertilizer to the soil thanks to their droppings, and of course, they let you collect their eggs every day!
This prize encourages vegetable gardeners to take the plunge and make a henhouse an integral part of their vegetable garden project!
The primary purpose of a vegetable garden is to produce food! Whether your vegetable garden is small or large, this criterion allows you to show us what you've done to encourage productivity. Have you created vertical arrangements to make the most of the space at your disposal? Have you combined crops (companion planting)? How do you plan to use the garden's harvests?
The effects of climate change are being felt in the garden (water shortages, seasonal changes, etc.). These phenomena are forcing vegetable growers to adapt, for example in terms of the sowing calendar, and even the choice of species.
At the same time, the kitchen garden is an important tool in the fight against climate change, notably by helping to store carbon.
Have you taken your local climate into account when designing your vegetable garden, for example in your choice of plants? Have you experimented with the texture of your soil? Have you planned for crop rotation, and thought about an economical watering system?
The vegetable garden is a way ofcreating a collective and inclusive project: that's also the aim of this competition. Is your team intergenerational? How many people have come to give you a hand (parents, neighbors, cooks from your facility, etc.)? Is your garden accessible to people with reduced mobility? Have you collaborated with your town council or a local association, for example, to obtain materials? Have you collected seeds or seedlings through an exchange group, or thanks to a neighbor? Sharing and exchanging: that's what the Coupe de France du potager is all about!
It's an essential criterion: the beauty of your vegetable garden!
Have you thought about the design of your vegetable garden as a team? Have you planted non-vegetable species to enhance the beauty of your garden? Have you embellished your vegetable garden with artistic works, or a relaxation area?
Have you started a vegetable garden with limited resources? Were the infrastructures at your disposal really not conducive to the creation and maintenance of a vegetable garden? Have you used your creativity to overcome a budget or material shortage, and are you proud of the result? Congratulations!
The Coupe de France du potager is also a way to create a community around your vegetable-gardening adventure! How can you help? By installing educational panels outside to present your plantings and installations, by organizing an event in the vegetable garden, or by creating a blog, a Facebook page, etc., to share your adventure... The aim: to involve as many people as possible in your project!
Soils are the basis of life and our food. It's soil that transforms dead matter into life - a real magician! It's thanks to soils and their wonderful ecosystem that we can enjoy delicious, nutrient-rich fruit and vegetables! In the vegetable garden, it's essential to protect and maintain soil health .
This prize is awarded in partnership with Conscious Planet's Savesoil movement.
The team with the most public votes (video competition)!
Have you created a vegetable garden? Congratulations!
But now you're faced with the big challenge of making it last!
Maintaining your vegetable garden, and ensuring its development from one year to the next, requires a little organization: making sure your garden, soil and plants are in good health, preparing and saving seeds for next year's plantings, and maintaining your garden, even when you're away!
It also means mobilizing and motivating those around you and the next generations, for an eternal vegetable garden!
