On Saturday 10 October more than 60 of us met at Energy Garden HQ for this year’s Harvest Party. Most people were volunteers from gardens across London, and some were discovering Energy Garden for the very first time. It was cosy inside, everyone was well fed and in good company, and I’m here to share some memories from the day!
When I first started planning this event and thought about harvest, my mind went straight to what was growing in our garden: squash in the beds, funny-shaped courgettes swelling in the greenhouse, nasturtiums, beans and salad leaves gathered by the handful. That's what I thought we'd be celebrating. But looking back on the day, somewhere between the plates and the stitches, I realised we'd gathered far more than anything that grows in soil. We harvested knowledge, stories, lessons from a hard summer, things made by hand and, most of all, each other.
So here's everything we harvested together that day.
Harvested for the table
Many of our Energy Garden favourites were grown just outside the door. Our Ebury Engagement Officer Finley picked fresh veg, beans and nasturtiums from the garden for the Energy Garden salad, and our chef Timish Doorjun, one of our Youth Training Programme graduates, dressed it with his delicious vinaigrette. There was butternut squash soup with coconut cream and our signature Energy Garden pizza, with EG Pale Ale and ginger beer to drink.
Alongside it, the potluck table filled up fast. Dish after dish arrived as people brought something from their own kitchens: cakes made with apples and pears, rich brownies and a spooky Halloween-themed skeleton gingerbread man that soon, spookily, vanished.
I have to admit, when I invited our volunteers to this event, one question kept coming up: "Will there be ice cream like last year?" So of course, there was. Timish and I made it ourselves: our special sea salt chocolate gelato, which went perfectly with the brownies from the potluck table, plus apple ice cream and a coconut blueberry vegan ice cream. Did people enjoy the feast? I think the empty plates said it all. In between running the events on the day, I went back for thirds myself.
Harvested from London’s green corners
Janice, a volunteer at Brondesbury Park Energy Garden, led our urban foraging workshop, and she came prepared. Her reference books were laid out for everyone to browse, alongside samples from her recent forages: nasturtium jelly, autumn hedgerow juice and candied figs. She brought along small containers so she could share portions with everyone who joined.
Janice began her presentation with why she forages in the first place. For her, it's a way to reconnect with nature in a city as urban as London, and to tune into the rhythms and cycles of the natural world. It's also a constant lesson in the small details of plants: how they taste and smell, when they're ready, and how to cook and preserve them. And, as she put it, it's simply fun, and a much better use of an afternoon than hours of doom-scrolling.
Her talk and demo were informative and encouraging, and it was lovely to see our kitchen, and the whole idea of foraging and harvest, take centre stage. People left noticing how much grows around us in the city. Janice even left a jar of nasturtium jelly for the Energy Garden office, which we very happily received.
Harvested from our Right to Nature
Our CEO & Founder, Agamemnon Otero MBE, then gave a talk on our ongoing Right to Nature work. Just two days earlier our youth trainees had joined a session with lawyers from Impact Law for Social Justice and Morrison Foerster to explore a simple question: do we have a right to nature where we live?
The lawyers found that no single UK law says "you have a right to nature."
There is still a real legal toolkit, though, made up of planning, environmental, clean air, equality, biodiversity and human rights law. The key thing they found is that most of these tools work as a shield rather than a sword. They're good at defending green spaces we already have, such as Town and Village Green status, the Community Right to Buy, neighbourhood plans and public rights of way. They're much weaker at making anyone create new ones. Aga closed the talk with some practical steps we can all take, as individuals and as communities.
Harvested from this growing season
This summer gave us a harder harvest too: a lesson. The climate felt very real in our gardens. Heatwaves, the hosepipe ban, water shortages and plants that didn't survive all showed us that our gardens will need to change.
For 14 years, co-design and co-production have been at the heart of how Energy Garden works. What's changing now is that we're getting better at understanding and explaining why it matters, and climate resilience is what we're ultimately transitioning towards.
Over the next year we want to learn alongside everyone who uses, grows, cares for and lives around these spaces. We'll widen the toolkit by bringing plants, materials and practical ideas, from climate-resilient planting to skill-sharing and lessons from the gardens. And we'd love you to bring what only you can: your knowledge of the place, your experience, your hopes for the garden and your ideas, big or small. Together we'll work out what a climate-resilient Energy Garden looks like in each place. This isn't another task on your list, but an open invitation to reflect on what we're already doing and shape what comes next, so that more of us can say: "This is our garden, and I have a part in what happens here."
We're planning the year around the seasons, following what the garden needs at each point. In spring we'll sow, plant and welcome new volunteers. In summer we'll look after the garden through the heat and keep an eye on water. In autumn we'll harvest, save seeds and get the soil ready for winter. Then winter is our time to rest, look back at how each garden coped and plan the next year together, which is why we're starting the conversation now.
Harvested from our creativity
After the talk, it was time to get hands-on again. We moved the office out of theatre seating and into three workshop tables, and everyone pulled up a chair for Mekha's cross-stitch journal cover workshop. This time the popular harvest pattern was corn, a fitting symbol for the season and a lovely way to carry a bit of the day home with you.
Mekha brought a whole range of colourful threads, and it was lovely to see everyone pick their own. Tips were passed around the tables, and the room soon went quiet with concentration, at least until the ice cream came round. By the end there were plenty of proud finishes, and they looked very cute. Each journal cover is a small reminder of what we made together that day.
Harvested together
The best harvest of the day was the conversations. They travelled across the room: youth trainees chatting with volunteers, members swapping stories with staff, first-timers finding their way in. In one small gathering you could see everything Energy Garden does, and how each part connects to the others. It's a movement we're building and growing together, and everyone plays a part.
As Anna, our gardens and engagement lead put it: these places may be called Energy Gardens, but everyone here is Energy Garden too.
A big thank you to everyone who came and brought food and stories to share, to our volunteers and youth trainees who prepared materials and co-facilitated the sessions, and to the Energy Garden team, whose energy all day made it possible.
See you at the Winter Fair!
We'll be back together at the end of November for our community gathering, followed by an extended Winter Fair with fun seasonal workshops for families: storytelling, creative art making and wreath making. Please RSVP using the link in our group channels, and look out for more announcements soon.