A new Hexham project is aiming to bring communities together through food, stories, and gardening.
Grow Hexham and Hexham Library are teaming up for Stories From Our Patch, a programme that forms part of the 2025/6 Europe Challenge.
The project aims to create a sense of community and reduce social isolation by encouraging people to share skills and be creative.
A spokesman for the project said: "Stories from Our Patch will begin with collecting memories around food, growing and cooking as a means of bringing people together and highlighting how much we have in common, regardless of background or heritage.
"These memories will be ‘bottled’ and ‘preserved’ in the library for use in the later phases of project activity."
The programme will include a range of activities designed to spark conversation.
Oral histories will be recorded and preserved as part of the project's legacy, with the potential to be shared in a book or digital collection.
Book groups, literary picnics, and "book tastings" themed around food will encourage participants to explore literature through the lens of what we eat.
Creative responses will also be encouraged, with people invited to share their memories through poetry, music, art, or spoken word.
The gardening element of the programme will be shaped by the stories collected, with foods and recipes central to people’s lives informing the next season’s planting in the community garden.
Beginner-friendly gardening sessions will be offered, along with ongoing support through regular community garden meetups.
The library will also promote its resources, including the seed library, reference books, and free access to online gardening periodicals.
One idea is to create veg boxes that include a book and a recipe bookmark.
Participants can visit the garden to pick the ingredients for the recipe, which connects to the featured book.
QR codes in the garden beds will link to online recipes, and cooking sessions will teach people how to prepare seasonal meals using the garden’s produce.
Organisers are looking to hold a number of cooking sessions using the ingredients from the garden to teach people new skills around eating well seasonally.
The spokesperson added: "The continual thread of ‘using technology to connect in a positive way’ runs throughout the project.
"We want to show that instead of polarising people technology, and how we use it, can instead bring us together.
"We will do this both locally – to share recipes and memories – but also to link us to communities further afield to share in their stories too.
Organisers say the long-term aim of the project is to spark interest in future growing and food-sharing activities in Hexham, using the town’s gardens, library, and community spaces.
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