RFGN awarded grant by Tesco's

In 2018 RFGN was awarded a £2,000 grant by Tesco's Bags of Help scheme.

We used the money to run a campaign to get more people involved in growing vegetables for Reading Town Meal. This annual event sees vegetables and fruit donated by the gardeners of Reading cooked into a delicious meal by the students at Reading College and served free at a wonderful community event to celebrate local food. In 2018, the event was held in Forbury Gardens on Saturday 29th September. Read more on the Town Meal website.

For our campaign, we focussed on a small range of easy-to-grow vegetables. We supplied free tubers, set, seeds or seedlings to anyone who wanted to grow for the Town Meal. We sent out regular emails with tips and advice during the year. And at the end of the season we gathered in lots of lovely food to contribute to the Town Meal.

The vegetables we chose were:Seed potatoes, beans and seed packets

  • potatoes: We supplied Lady Balfour seed potatoes for maincrop and Charlotte seed potatoes to grow in containers
  • onions: We supplied Sturon onion sets
  • green beans: We supplied seeds of Cobra and Eva climbing beans, and Borlotto and Saxa dwarf beans
  • squash: We supplied seedlings of Butternut Waltham, Orange Hokkaido (Red Kuri) and Sweet Dumpling
  • beetroot: We supplied seeds of Boltardy and Cylindra
  • salad leaves: We supplied seeds for Asian leaves, Lettuce and Rocket
  • radish: We supplied seeds of Cherry Belle, French Breakfast 2 and Eiszapfen