St Sidwell’s Community Centre is hosting a series of nature talks accompanied by shared seasonal meals made with food, herbs and edible flowers grown in its community garden.
Following a companion planting talk in June, the series continues on Thursday 23 July with a talk by Peter Hurst from the charity Butterfly Conservation on creating a butterfly haven in your garden.
On Friday 18 September, Devon Ukrainian Association will give a talk about the use of herbs in Ukrainian cooking which includes the chance to sow some herbs to take home.
The community centre’s garden manager Julie Smith will then present a talk on seed saving for food growers on Thursday 15 October which will also cover plant biology and how to get started in your own garden.
On Wednesday 4 November, Dr Christian Taylor from the School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences at The Open University will talk about fungi and how they permeate life.
Each event in the series aims to bring the local community together around nature-inspired themes and good food.
St Sidwell’s Community Centre, which opened in 2001, is an independent, entirely secular charity which welcomes everyone regardless of background, ability or circumstance and offers a range of activities, events and services for the local community.
It runs a community café, a bakery, a community fridge and free English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes.
The centre also manages a large community garden, where organic fruit and vegetables are grown for use in the café, offers meeting rooms for hire to local groups and acts as a local heritage hub for Exeter city centre’s eastern quarter.
Each event in the St Sidwell’s Community Centre seasonal meals and nature talks series starts with a talk at 6.30pm which is followed by a shared meal at 7.30pm.
Doors open at 6pm to offer time to meet fellow guests and settle in.
Tickets start at £10 for low-waged and unwaged attendees, standard tickets cost £15 and supporter tickets, which help subsidise lower-cost tickets for other attendees, cost £20.
For more information and to book visit the St Sidwell’s Community Centre website.
