Hollyhock: A Garden-to-Table Experience

By / Photography By & | April 10, 2021
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Nestled on the Salish Sea of our beautiful North West Coast is the quaint and lively remote island of Cortes, in the traditional and ancestral territories of the Klahoose, Tla’amin and Homalco First Nations. Here, surrounded by cedar rainforest and expansive ocean, you’ll find one of B.C.’s finest garden-to-table gems. 

Hollyhock is a leadership learning centre that offers programs in wellness, creativity and social innovation. From yoga, meditation and healthy eating to photography, professional development and climate action, Hollyhock aims to create meaningful experiences that inspire both personal growth and social transformation. 

At the heart (or shall we say belly) of these experiences is, of course, the food. Hollyhock’s world-renowned kitchen produces an astounding array of creative and decadent vegetarian and pescatarian fusion dishes, often made with fresh ingredients found right outside the kitchen doors. Hollyhock’s French-intensive garden and orchard produces a wide variety of vegetables, fruit, and herbs, offering not only a feast for the belly, but also for the eyes and the heart. Placed at the centre of the Hollyhock campus, the garden is the perfect reminder of our unique connection to nature, where the human spirit meets the earth.

The garden-to-table experience augments Hollyhock’s programs by deepening participants’ connection to nature and to the health of their own bodies. Many people new to plant-based eating are astounded at the creative culinary possibilities. The garden also provides a lot of creative inspiration for art and poetry. "The enchanting gardenscape is so lovingly tended...it greets you upon arrival, and before and after every blessed meal freshly harvested from its yields—it instructs as fully as any curriculum!" says Hollyhock participant Hilary Leighton.

The Hollyhock garden focuses on growing almost all the greens and herbs used by the kitchen throughout the season. It also offers 17 other kinds of vegetables, with many different varieties of each. Diversity is the key to a healthy garden, and every year the Hollyhock gardeners trial new varieties. 

It is often difficult to find lettuce varieties that do well in the heat of the summer. “When trialing lettuce and most other veggies, we are looking for characteristics such as flavour, texture, colour, and suitability for our climate and seasons,” says garden manager Holly Mackay. Some of Hollyhock’s most reliable summer lettuce types have been Salvius, a delicious green romaine, Red Rosie, a tasty and beautiful red romaine, Cherokee, a dark red leaf lettuce, and Sierra, another green crisp head with a blush of red. The gardeners also save seeds every year from some of their favorite spring lettuces such as Olga and Marvel.

In 2020, when Hollyhock had to close its doors due to the pandemic, the garden pivoted to providing food for the laid-off island staff. In this way, during a time of crisis, the garden continued to nourish people—not just physically, but also emotionally. It became a representation of growth and hope through challenge. Mackay explains, “Gardening is a never-ending adventure in learning, and we love this aspect of our work.”


 

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