growing food more generally, and appear instead to be simultaneously entangled as orienting devices towards other undertakings that also have a life within Transition. In this sense, Transition as a whole displays an internal relatedness that takes food growing beyond the more bounded logic of the ‘perma-blitz’,25 and makes it a springboard towards further engagements and invitations, beyond the showcasing of permaculture design techniques.
This manifold, entangled existence of food growing projects is noticeable already in one of the first ones initiated in Totnes, namely the planting of edible fruit and nut trees across town. Beyond the physical impact of the trees in terms of integrating food growing in the urban landscape as well as providing ecosystem services such as carbon capture,26 this activity also offered material embodiment to a distinctive story about Totnes, allowing the latter’s branding as the ‘Nut Tree Capital’ of the UK. This way, the planting of trees becomes more than just an isolated project pertaining to growing food. It is also a device to provide visibility to the moving of Transition as a whole, conjuring – in the trees – the emergence of a distinctive culture of Transition. Through the signposting (with trees) of a space – the nut tree capital of the UK – in which certain orientations are being nurtured, it becomes easier to ‘see’ Transition in its making, and tip over into seeking an involvement with something that sits increasingly within reach. This simple story, in other words, facilitates precisely the sort of immediate communication and open invitation that a long discussion on climate change and peak oil, followed by an outline of the principles of permaculture, just wouldn’t do.
Moreover, the growing of food, whether this may be in connection with the tree-planting project or other forms of gardening, brings together a community that forms around a common task.27 Gardening together offers a sense of shared involvement, without that involvement having to be negotiated from first principles, and without having to come to an agreement on the reasons to engage in gardening. Participating in a communal garden can in fact fulfil many different purposes: from an opportunity to assert a political commitment or an interest in learning more about growing food, to offering ways for a young mother to allay the occupation of childcare (as gardening – and other gardeners – keeps the children busy), or for someone else to learn a skill, to be physically active28 or simply to dig up a few potatoes. In fact, it is the garden itself that necessitates maintenance and therefore sets the stage for building lasting relationships between participants, because they come to ‘owe it’ to the garden’s continued life. The communal garden has the capacity to involve people without asking too many questions: gardeners do not ‘enunciate a principle and then act on it’.29
In addition to this, the meaning of an embodied practice of gardening can only be teased out by exploring what ‘next steps’ are apparent from one’s initial engagement with it, so as to understand what sort of orientation that practice ultimately provides. Here, it is possible to distinguish gardening as a specifically ‘Transition’ thing (and different from, say, a permacultural practice), in the sense of directing participants to undertake further steps into a milieu where gardening latches on to a range of other distinctive possibilities that become accessible from there. And those possibilities relate not so much to the further discovery of permaculture and the acquisition of the embodied and informational resources needed to become a permacultural practitioner. Instead, they introduce concerns that may spark further doings in alignment with the evolving possibilities present within the Transition milieu.30 For instance, one may develop a kindred interest in foraging (and perhaps be ushered into the problem of relating to the ecology one has thereby gained awareness of),31 or a willingness to meet more often by organising potlucks apart from the gardening engagement. Or one may go on to become involved in a community-supported agriculture scheme (and, from there, into supporting the local economy more generally), or take on critical attitudes towards consumption as a consequence of the direct experience of producing food (and search for what additional possibilities might be available to facilitate such behaviour, such as a community currency). In other words, gardening within Transition has the potential to involve participants in a number of experiences and realisations that can induce a sense of a ‘lack of fit’ with the attachments that shape their lives outside of the gardening project and, by introducing new disquiets and areas of concern, spark a search for matching social and material arrangements to release the tension.
An example may help contextualise this better in relation to a particular case. On a cool morning, I joined a group of other volunteers to perform some maintenance on an orchard that was part of the ‘Incredible Edible Totnes’ project,32 involving the growing of herbs and vegetables in public spaces for people to freely pick from. Here, a few things drew my attention. The first was a noticeboard signposting edible plants that passers-by might not necessarily be familiar with, helping the layperson develop an ‘eye’ for seasonality and particular plant varieties. I subsequently inquired about the criteria that went into the choice of the vegetable mix to plant in an orchard of this sort. The response was interesting, since one of the criteria for choosing cultivars was to enable as low a threshold of engagement with the orchard as possible on the part of passers-by. So, for instance, chosen plants tended to be of a variety that allowed easy picking, tipping the bias towards herbs as opposed to tubers like potatoes, that would require one to possess some tools and knowledge to dig them up, with the risk of damaging other plants if not done with the requisite care and expertise. Moreover, on that particular occasion, the orchard was growing a few herbs and some squashes, which the volunteer group were pulling out to make space for the next crop. Our digging was briefly interrupted by a passer-by that inquired about a particular squash he had been watching, and which he was planning to harvest and cook once ripe. The passer-by’s interaction with the working team expressed concern for the potential loss of an attachment (to the desired squash) that had been developed and tended to in their absence, and it provided a succinct manifestation of the extent to which the presence and design of the orchard enabled experiences – of seasonality, of concern for public space, and a curiosity for foraging – to ‘grow’ in an almost underhand way on those engaging with it. These orchards were ‘Transition’ orchards insofar as they acted as possibilities through which to become oriented towards its moving that embraces more than the orchards themselves and, specifically, other Transition-type practices. The yields sought were not simply centred on the individual patch and the uses that human and nonhuman bodies would make of it, but they embraced the facilitation of forms of engagement that could subsequently ‘poise’ those so affected to become more open to other experiences available, beyond the garden itself, in the wider life-world of Transition.
Growing food evokes Transition-ness precisely when it signals a potential continuity with other non-food growing activities into which the inadvertent forager or food grower might be ushered by having taken that initial step. As participants develop a deeper ability to recognise – and a taste for – seasonal food, an awareness of the availability of and challenges pertaining to common spaces, and gather experiences of conviviality (in the sense of cum-vivere, i.e. living – and belonging – together), gardening can act as a source of further curiosities and disquiets, to which they might be more inclined to respond by escalating their involvement beyond the gardening/harvesting itself, and into developing other aspects of an evolving Transition culture.
Food and the experience of ‘community’
Similar initiatives invite anyone, even in their capacity as passers-by (and not as people interested to know more about permaculture) to join. Gardening projects work as much on the availability of local food as they foster what a volunteer called the ‘spirit of sharing’, through which particular inclinations slowly ‘grow’ on participants, prompting the development of a wider culture of Transition (across and even beyond the food growing aspect). One instance of this is the experience of foraging for food in a communal garden, which may nurture a newfound ability to ‘perceive’ seasonality and a curiosity to locate ‘edible’ crops. Leading on from this, the Transition initiative in Totnes arranges what are called Skillshares. These are ‘taster’ meetings to which anyone can sign up, and take part in an induction session about various activities, often related to cultivating a novel relationship with food. Therefore it is the case that expert foragers have offered taster sessions on foraging in and around Totnes through
