You can find salad grown in Bute Park on the menu at some of Cardiff’s top restaurants

Salad grown in Bute Park by asylum seekers is making it onto on the menu at some of Cardiff’s top restaurants.

The Cardiff Salad Garden – a not-for-profit social enterprise working in agreement with the Cardiff council’s Parks Department – have established a successful a growing space in a walled garden and greenhouse in Bute Park, based just behind the Secret Garden Cafe.

About the Cardiff Salad Garden

The project is the brainchild of horticulturalist Sophie Duran and Volunteer Co-ordinator Fissha Teklom, who arrived in the UK in 2003 as a refugee from Eritrea.

After long negotiations with Cardiff Council, The Cardiff Salad Garden has now been up and running for just over a year, and as well as growing fresh, sustainable produce in the city centre, it provides volunteering opportunities for the city’s asylum seeker population.

The leaves from the salad garden are picked on a daily basis and delivered by bicycle, making the project eco-friendly and super-sustainable.

From humble beginnings, they now provide more than 10 different seasonal varieties of edible leaves and flowers to restaurants in Cardiff, including The Embassy Cafe, Pettigrew Tearooms and Bakery, Milkwood Pontcanna, and Park House Restaurant.

 

Find out more

You can read more about the project in this in-depth feature from Food Cardiff, or, tune into the latest edition of the Seismic Wales Podcast featuring Sophie talking about the project, and an interview with salad stockist David Le Masurier of Pettigrew Bakery.

If you run a restaurant or cafe in Cardiff and would like to order from the Cardiff Salad Garden, you can contact the founder Sophie on: sophspost@hotmail.com.