Last week we held our Garden to Plate cooking and dinner volunteer celebration. The idea was suggested by our lead garden volunteer facilitator, Simone, as a way of showing our appreciation to all our garden volunteers who have put so much hard work and love into the garden.
During the summer months, Simone co-ordinated a team of waterers, who came in on different days each week to water the crops - Alison, Yessica, Marilyn, Bethany and Simone. This meant that most days were covered, even during the extreme heat. Simone shared that other gardens were understandably struggling this year, but that it was thanks to the dedication and hard work of our watering team, our crops managed to not only survive but thrive!
Simone has also been leading fortnightly gardening and food growing sessions that have been open for all the community to join, and we are extremely grateful to all our committed volunteers who have also joined for these.
The evening was a full house - with 16 total, including our garden volunteers and other loyal community members. We started in the garden, where we harvested beans, tomatoes, beetroot, sorrel and chard.
Alison, a professional chef, led a group in making a tomato tart with balsamic and mustard glaze, and green beans in a tomato sauce. Whilst Zoe got another group to make a sorrel pesto potato salad, stir fried greens and rhubarb and apple crumble (rhubarb generously brought by Simone from her garden).
It was lovely to see such a busy and lively kitchen, with everyone mucking in, cooking together and getting to know one another. We then all sat down to enjoy the meal together - which was wonderful. We agreed that when the veg are this fresh (and organic), they speak for themselves and don’t need much added to them.
We shared our appreciation and gratitude to all our amazing garden volunteers. An enormous thank you and congratulations went to Simone who has put so much energy, enthusiasm and passion into this project, from organising the watering rota and facilitating decisions about what to grow to planning creative and engaging bi-monthly sessions. We agreed that this is a real collective effort, and shows how we can do so much more when we come together. And of course we have to thank mother nature for providing us with such an abundance.
Here’s some quotes from a couple of our members about the evening:
“One of the best meals I’ve had at JVS - all the more for knowing much of the produce was harvested just outside this evening. You could taste the freshness, and community cooking means it’s made with love”.
‘Really enjoyable, I learned a few cooking tips, had a lovely meal’.