Crowd-growing a feast in Auckland

Leeks and courgettes are planted in Wynyard Quarter ahead of the Crowd-Grown Feast. Photo / Supplied

On April 11, two chefs, a band and one hundred guests will gather in Auckland's Wynyard Quarter for a feast made with ingredients from the diners' gardens.

The event, Crowd-Grown Feast, brings together pop-up dining, crowd-sourcing and urban gardening and is billed as a world-first. Participants sign up to grow a certain ingredient, receive seeds or seedlings, then deliver their crops before the meal.

The few tickets still available cost $35 for a guest who can provide fresh goat's milk and $40 for guests able to produce three fennel bulbs or at least two kilograms of tomatoes. Other diners have already agreed to provide leeks, eggs, courgettes, beans, capsicum, chillies, beetroot, cucumber and eggplant.

In exchange, participants will be wined, dined and serenaded at dinner tables set up inside Wynyard Quarter's iconic silos. The aim is to encourage city residents to grow their own food and to connect with other growers in the community.

"It's going to be stunning. The chefs will cook the dishes in view of the diners, set to live music inside the silos, a rarely-accessed space," Crowd-Grown Feast co-organiser Chloe Waretini said.

"We look forward to having the growers sit down and bond, enjoying a meal that is created using ingredients they have had a hand in growing themselves."

The event's organisers - who also include urban gardening expert Emily Harris and chef Ben Barton - are prepared to adjust the menu if needed.

"We've designed the menu based on what grows well in Auckland over the summer but we have to be ready to adapt it at the last minute depending on how crops turn out," Barton said.

"We have a safety-net of locally sourced produce that we can use in the event of crop failure."

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