The Kitchen Garden at The Leaf has been thriving! The best part is, when the produce is doing well, its benefits support the rest of the Park.

On Tuesdays, from June to the end of the season, our Horticultural team heads into the Kitchen Garden to collect the vegetables, fruit, and herbs that are ready to eat. The season began with the picking of berries and herbs, but recently, they harvested herbs, carrots, beans, cucumbers, and more.

Carrots freshly harvested from the Kitchen Garden.

Once they are reviewed, washed, and labelled, the team delivers this excellent, fresh produce to Gather Craft Kitchen & Bar and the Park Café, where they prepare a variety of delicious foods and drinks, including sauces, syrups, and teas.

Gather Craft Kitchen & Bar has created a variety of amazing dishes from ingredients in the garden, including their signature carrots, patty pan squash, and simmering shiso for cocktail syrups. They also utilize borage and flowers to garnish cocktails. Following a recent harvest, they blended fresh lovage to create an oil to pair with their oysters.

Gather Craft Kitchen & Bar utilizes a variety of ingredients from the Kitchen Garden in their dishes, including blending fresh lovage to create an oil for their oysters.

At the Park Café, they transformed the chamomile they received from the garden into a delicious tea for visitors. Previously, they’ve fermented chilli and peppers into a hot sauce, used mint and basil in their delicious herbal lemonade, and cooked various vegetables into their soups of the day, all from the Kitchen Garden.

Fresh camomile from the Kitchen Garden was made into a delicious tea available at the Park Café.

A portion of the harvest is brought to the Zoo for the animals.

Watch a recent harvest day at the Kitchen Garden on our Instagram.