The land of the former quarry is owned by the Dondina family; it had previously belonged to the Barons of Teulada. The property was called “Su Baroni” and included pasture land and olive groves planted in the mid-1700s.
In the post-World War II period, the activity of extracting grit for the construction of ballast for the many roads that were rebuilt in Cagliari began, and the quarry remained active until the late 1970s. Thereafter it becomes a marginal area, also turning into a kind of illegal dump.
In 2011, the AgriCulture association managed to obtain a free loan from the owners to use the former quarry to create a shared space of “Urban Gardens,” or shared horticulture without the use of chemicals. Following a fire, possibly of arson origin, members begin the cleanup and sorting of found trash until the land is cleared, creating paths and dividing it into lots. However, the lack of a water source gradually drove members away, and after three years the AgriCulture association preferred to return the land to the owners.
In 2020 the association AMICI NaturalMente regains the free loan of use from the owners, with the aim of creating in the same ex-cave a “Forest of Food,” less demanding in terms of water, and thus restarts the care of the place thanks mainly to a specific working group of “water workers,” and various cultural and social activities are organized. In 2024, a small program of theatrical interventions also begins in the so-called “green amphitheater” created inside the former quarry, where the themes dear to the association (environment, food, health, sustainability) are proposed in an artistic and appealing form.
