The food, which has been grown in the kitchen gardens at Sculpture by the Lakes near Dorchester, would have supplied the on-site café at the venue. The park is currently closed, so the gardeners decided to offer their home-grown salad and vegetables to Food Share, a project based at Dorchester Community Church.

Kitchen gardener, Mick Denney, said, “We put so much energy and effort into growing the best produce we can, so we knew we could never let it go to waste. Thanks to Food Share that is definitely not going to be the case.

“This is a fantastic project being run by local people and we’re really pleased to see our lovely salad and veg go to families in need. We hope it’s now being enjoyed in homes across our community.”

Mick will be picking, packing and delivering all of the gardens’ surplus food over the next six weeks, ready to be shared with the wider community. Amongst the donated food will be mixed leaves salads, including mustards, chervil, parsley, lettuce, chard, spinach, claytonia, coriander, rocket, baby kale, endive, chicory, and mint, and carrots. They will be added to the 70 food parcels delivered by the project weekly to homes across the DT1 and DT2 postcode areas.

As the church building is currently closed due to Covid restrictions, the Food Share project is being co-ordinated from the home of volunteer Liz Meech. She said, “We were delighted to receive this kind offer from Sculpture by the Lakes – made all the more welcome because it covers a time of year when donations are in short supply.

“We’ve had lovely comments about children eating some fresh fruit and vegetables they’d never tried before thanks to our food parcels, so we know the wide range of produce being donated will be appreciated by the families we supply.

“This kind donation is helping to keep families supplied and children healthy through the winter months, and we are so grateful to the team at Sculpture by the Lakes for thinking of us.”