where the untended feeds us

Cécile Gilquin’s “Tiers-Paysage”

A garden bursting with diversity. Photo: Adèle Violette

“All the places neglected by human beings”: this is the site of the Third Landscape (Tiers-Paysage) as defined by Gilles Clément in his Manifesto of the Third Landscape.

Cécile Gilquin was drawn to this concept that celebrates the neglected — those plants that we too often forget to appreciate — as “biological diversity that has not yet been classified as richness”, while also showing that it is possible to interact with nature without seeking to dominate it.

A few years into a career in communications, Cécile decided it was time to swap the clacking of the keyboard for the buzzing of insects. She found a job on an urban farm and resumed a course in gardening, where she was inspired to launch in 2020 her own Third Landscape (or Tiers-Paysage in her native French).

Author: Adèle Pautrat, October 2025

Where the Wild Begins

I met Cécile at a seed exchange in Brussels back in April 2025. Already I had discovered her project, attracted by the poetry of her posts and photos on social media.

When we first discuss Tiers-Paysage, Cécile recalls a childhood memory of foraging: afternoons spent picking brand-new dandelion buds with her mother, which they would later eat fried in lard.

Perhaps you had a similar introduction to awakening to wild edible plants: collecting chestnuts in autumn, picking blackberries for jam or violets for boiled sweets, scrumping figs from a neighbour's tree, or pricking your fingers on rose hips...

We might think of these as ‘wild’ foods, but let’s rather call these plants ‘spontaneous’, meaning they grow without the need for human intervention. The terminology is tricky because really what is still wild in our ultra-manicured, controlled landscapes?

In the early days of Tiers-Paysage, Cécile focussed on foraging (on private land where she knew the owners), selling her harvest to a few restaurants in Brussels. Scots pine, larch and acacia flowers, nettles, rugosa rose, hops, ground ivy, hogweed, bamboo shoots, forget-me-nots, sorrel, meadowsweet, flower buds of the marsh thistle... The list is long, and could be longer, demonstrating the wealth of edible plants that can (still) be found on a walk in the meadows or forest.

Cécile wandering her garden, gathering treasures for me to taste. Photos: Adèle Violette

Some of Cécile’s wild finds. Photos: Cécile Gilquin

Foraging and Farming

What characterises some of the plants that Cécile picks is that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to cultivate them outside their natural cycle and ecosystem. This is the case, for example, with gentian, valerian and wild garlic.

Other plants grow wild in their preferred environments and climates, but can also be cultivated, which means they can be obtained in large enough quantities as needed, without the risk of over-harvesting.

Aware of the pressure that foraging can exert on the environment, Cécile has chosen to supplement her activities by cultivating half a hectare of land near the village of Lasne, south of Brussels.

When I visit, I too am plunged into childhood memories. In this wild and nourishing garden, almost everything is edible and there is no such thing as a weed. All you have to do is reach out your hand to find your mouth full of flavours: dahlia petals, cosmos flowers, dwarf pansies, physalis and its cousin the Peruvian ground cherry, Mexican marigold, tarragon, huacatay, or lemon tagetes... All my senses are awakened; I don't know which of these wandering plants to turn to.

Photos: Adèle Violette

An automn morning in the 600 square meters garden that Cécile Gilquin cultivates, a few kilometers from Brussels. Photo: Adèle Violette

A Garden Teeming with Life

It is impossible to estimate at a glance the number of species that inhabit Cécile's garden. They are everywhere: teeming, oozing, resolutely living. “The messier it is, the more my soil is alive. My first concern is biomass. It’s important because when I got here, the soil was very poor, suffocated. I’m in a basin; this plot collects all the run-off from the neighbouring fields,” Cécile explains as she coaxes seeds from the dried stem of a poppy. “Anything that reseeds itself is welcome. It saves me time on sowing, and I work on the principle that whatever has arrived here has the right to stay.”

Of course, many of the plants I see that day were introduced to the field by Cécile. In addition to herbs and flowers, she grows a few vegetables, and I'm curious to learn more about how she sources her biodiversity. Cécile laughingly describes herself as a ‘big seed geek’: she spends hours trawling the internet in the hopes of discovering a new plant.

She shows me some of the Instagram accounts she follows: restaurants and delis, farmers and bakers, in Italy, Korea, Japan and Kazakhstan. She pores over photos and videos, and when she spots a plant that piques her curiosity, her research begins. First, she scrolls through the comments and hashtags, trying to glean a name or detail that might put her on the right track. If the post is not in French, she then has to figure out the Latin name of the plant from the vernacular. Finally, she scours the internet in search of a small business, association or collective that stocks the seeds and is ideally based close by.

Cécile is showing me her methodology for finding new plant species. Photo: Adèle Violette

Spontaneity vs Being Selective

Cécile is passionate about her work. And as is often the case in this field, passion comes at a price. This year, in preparation for the coming season, she has already spent over €500 on seeds alone, not to mention other essential supplies. She only buys small quantities — 5 to 10 gram packets that she will test and potentially multiply herself — but the rarer varieties tend to be pricey. What’s more, shipping can cost up to €20 per order.

Cécile also frequents seed swaps in the Brussels region. In the past, she even launched a project to facilitate seed swaps between individuals, with the aim of contributing to biodiversity in urban areas. However, she now feels that these events have their limitations: diversity can sometimes be lacking, and detailed information and guidelines for growing the varieties are rarely available.

Beyond her spontaneous ‘treasure hunt’ methodology, Cécile has a set of criteria that she uses to select what to grow in her field. Plants must be suited to Belgian growing conditions, hardy and low maintenance. She looks for plants that can be harvested several times a year and whose different parts — fruits, flowers, leaves, seeds, roots — can be used, fresh and/or dried.

These days she is also focussing on the culinary side, testing and approving recipes that she can then sell to her clients — or experimenting with clients directly. On the day of my visit, Cécile tells me she is working with Khobz bakery in Brussels to explore whether sourdough can be replaced with Tiers-Paysage’s ferments made from wild plants such as crab apples, pineapple weed, black locust, Japanese knotweed, oleaster fruit, and cherry blossoms.

Wild fermentation experiments by Tiers-Paysage. In the centre, a bread made by the bakery Khobz with a crab apple ferment. Photos: Cécile Gilquin, Adèle Violette

Finding Balance in the Third Landscape

When she first started out, Cécile mainly worked with restaurants. Today, she prefers more flexible clients such as bakeries and catering services, as her model is not suited to the need to maintain an identical menu over a long period of time. There are opportunities out there, but Cécile has committed to a niche business, and it is not easy to reconcile her philosophy with the need for profitability.

“I can’t make a living doing all the sowing myself and working manually in a small field with so much diversity. Because, let's face it, business is more about having a certain quantity of a certain product for a certain period of time."

Faced with these difficulties, a year ago Cécile decided to take on a paid job four days a week, which gives her financial stability. She dedicates one day a week to foraging and spends most of her weekends in her field. It’s still a huge investment, but Cécile now has peace of mind and feels more aligned with her initial ambitions. Because very soon after launching Tiers-Paysage, she found herself grappling with ethical questions.

“The concept of Third Landscape basically refers to a small ecosystem that is not subject to human intervention. I think it's hard to line that up, not only with the fact that I have a field where I choose what to grow — even if I do allow plants to grow spontaneously — but also with foraging, which takes its toll on the environment if you're not careful.”

Biting Into the Living Green

Cécile's philosophy is to propose an alternative approach to food. She wants to help people understand that lots of spontaneous plants are edible, “and that if you have a garden, you don't have to clear them. You can feed yourself with lots of plants without necessarily spending money on seeds, to grow them in very specific conditions, which can be a bit restrictive.”

This is where her approach strikes a chord with me and resonates with the issues we are addressing through the Seeds4All project. Not only protecting and helping regenerate biodiversity, but also not forgetting that food is both personal and political, and that it is possible, even necessary, to reclaim the knowledge and resources around it.

‘Wild plants’, ‘cultivated plants’, spontaneous plants in our farming and food practices: the challenges all come back to biodiversity, and the double threat of massive decline coupled with the industrial concentration of food production.

The Tiers-Paysage experiment once again demonstrates the challenges of developing a groundbreaking agri-food project that prioritises ecological concerns over economic needs.

By accepting that it won’t be her sole source of income, Cécile has managed to find a balance. Where she wants to take her business next is to create a sensory laboratory where she can share her message with visiting groups.

As I leave her, my head filled with plant names and a renewed desire to devote time to my own kitchen garden, I feel that her project has a bright future ahead, because it touches on something essential: rekindling in us that wild and ancestral relish for biting greedily into the living green.

More edible plants diversity in Cécile Gilquin's garden. Photo: Adèle Violette