EXTREME SALAD WORLD is a biodiversity-maximizing kitchen garden that is unreasonable—packed with as many kinds of salad ingredients as can possibly fit into a small urban park. What would a world that was devoted to increasing edible biodiversity and regenerating soils taste and feel like? The garden rejects efficiency and simplicity in favor of vegetal hedonism: an overload of plants that are ecologically beneficial and can be eaten by humans with minimal processing.

And if you’d like to sign up for the EXTREME SALAD WORLD launch programme, please register here.

The garden contains more than 60 ingredients that are inspired by near-Arctic gardener Stephen Barstow’s legendary 200+ ingredient salads as well as Food Forest Taste Tests we have conducted throughout the Netherlands since 2022.

Look closely: more birds and pollinators are arriving each season and many of the wild plants that show up are edible too and. Taste slowly: do any of the smells and flavours transport you to another time in your life or is this the very first time you have experienced this taste? Join us for a series of public activities that include biodiversity assessments, harvest parties, collaborative tastings and interpretive tours.

The artists are present on most Thursdays from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm

Start a conversation with the artists, or get your hands dirty and help in the garden Check Instagram @genomicgastronomy for updates

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EXTREME SALAD WORLD began in the spring of 2024 as an artist-run kitchen garden with the title Genomic Gastronomy Garden, in the former seal enclosure in Amstel Park. It is tended to by Zone2Source, testing ground for art and ecology, in collaboration with artist group Genomic Gastronomy. Our goal was to grow food in a city park while observing and improving the ecological functioning of the site and engaging the public through taste, touch and the art of attention. After three seasons of food forest taste tests, space-seed-saving and biodiversity assessments, we are re-naming the garden: “Extreme Salad World”: an ever widening collection of wild, cultivated and perennial plants.