It had rained without stopping since 6pm on the night before, so things did not look promising on Sunday for the first Harvest Festival at the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden. However, once Brian’s homemade ‘Dalston soup’ was cooking up everything started to feel a whole lot better.
The centrepiece of our celebration of Dalston grown food was a sight to behold. Eastern Curve Gardeners U-Sun, Kate and Miriam harvested the last of this year’s produce from the Dalston Roof Park on Ashwin Street and back at the Garden arranged it with our beans, tomatoes, salads and herbs. Beautiful chard grown in a Colvestone Crescent garden completed the abundant display.
There was lots of mashing and pounding of basil, garlic and pine nuts in the pesto workshops led by Dalston resident, Marina Dar.
The Garden’s mint was added to Gulay’s tzatziki and we were able to sample squash-leaf soup courtesy of Diana. The lack of sun of late, means that like many local growers we still have a lot of unripened tomatoes. So what better way to use them than with a fried-green tomato cook-up, with recipe courtesy of Miriam and chopping and frying assistance from Kate, Anthea, Birtan and Ali.
Thanks to Gereth Oddie for taking our lovely photos.
