On Monday evening, we celebrated the hard work of our garden volunteers, our beautiful vegetable garden, and the abundance it is now producing. Many of those who joined us have been part of this journey from the very beginning — planting vegetables from seedlings, nurturing seedlings on windowsills, and tending to the beds.
We came together and took in the abundance of veg we now have growing. We harvested purple and golden beetroot, rainbow chard, runner beans, courgettes, nasturtiums and lettuce. After our harvest, we weighed the vegetables — an impressive 7.82 kg — and proudly submitted the total to Capital Growth's harvest-meter helping track not just our food production but also the amount of CO₂ we've saved, which was 7kg!
We then gathered in the kitchen, where everyone mucked in to create a generous spread of dishes: kale and beetroot salad, summer rolls, courgette dip, beetroot hummus, green bean and potato salad, and flatbreads. We even enjoyed a foraged fruit compote and homemade ice cream.
Simone, our fantastic volunteer garden facilitator summed it up perfectly:
"It has been a labour of love, a joint effort, a journey of volunteers sowing and germinating, growing on their windowsills, planting out in the garden, caring for them over the months, building raised beds from scratch, composting and taking turns with our weekly watering".
We owe huge thanks to everyone who has put time, energy, and heart into the garden, to Simone for leading the project, and to all who donated to our fundraiser — without you, this would never have taken root.
Here's what some of our community had to say about the evening:
"I had a beautiful evening with everyone in the kitchen and a community feeling around the table, an amalgamation of wonderful dishes and taste sensations".
"I came away feeling inspired about using more fresh ingredients".
"Thanks everyone for a wonderful evening. Whether you've been looking after the plants for weeks and weeks, organising the admin or just showed up on the evening with your love and energy".