Visitors to the Oxford Botanic Garden are often surprised to discover that staff in attendance welcome them bringing their picnics into the garden. They believe a picnic in the garden helps people to draw connections between the food they eat, the plants that grow in there and the places of the world from which many of these plants originate. Visitors therefore are very welcome to enjoy a picnic in the sunshine there, providing they take their waste home with them.

To highlight this, a series of summer picnics has been planned at the garden, beginning tomorrow. Others take place on Saturday, June 23; Saturday, July 7; Saturday, July 21; Saturday, August 4; Saturday, August 18; and Saturday, September 8.

Emma Williams, the garden's Primary and Families Education Officer, explained that the picnics offer them a chance to encourage people to think about recycling, reducing waste and reusing items. In line with this, sustainability activities have been included in the picnic programmes. The afternoons will also focus on things we can do to make our lives more sustainable, in order to help the natural world.

Emma explained that there would be a series of craft recycling activities at each picnic, some run by staff at the garden and some by Wrap (Waste Resources Action Programme). The Climate X-Change group will also attend some of the picnics.

Emma said: "The Climate X-Change group will be bringing along their giant game of climate change snakes and ladders which they hope will stimulate visitors into taking action against climate change in Oxfordshire."

The picnics will also be linking up with other intriguing activities taking place in Oxford, such as the Alice Day on Saturday, July 7, and the Opening Doors, Opening Minds, weekend on Saturday, June 23, which is organised by the Oxford Preservation Trust. On that day, there will be tours which take visitors behind the scenes at the garden.

The focus of the afternoons, however, will be the live performances of music, poetry readings, stories for young and old and guided tours of the garden.

Staging entertainment at a picnic is not new. Picnics came into their own during the Victorian era, though they are thought to have evolved from the elaborate medieval tradition created by the wealthy of moving the feast outside during the fine weather and including entertainers among the number. There were colourful medieval hunting feasts enjoyed deep in the forest, too, and country banquets in the Renaissance where entertainment would certainly have been provided.

Lavish descriptions of the delights of the picnic party can be found in many classic works of literature. Dickens, Trollope and Jane Austen all introduced the picnic into their fiction, and painters such as Monet, Renoir and Cezanne immortalised picnic parties in oils.

Picnics are loved, not just because food seems to taste better in the open air, but because of the informality a picnic affords. Dress can be more casual and eating with one's fingers is permitted.

Obviously, food can be lavish if it is only moved from the kitchen to the lawn, just a few feet away. But picnics that have to be transported some considerable distance present a few logistical challenges. Highly decorated cream gateaux certainly don't travel well, nor do little strawberry cream tartlets that tend to get squashed during their journey in the basket. The simpler the food, the better it tastes.

Perhaps it was Ratty in The Wind in the Willows who got it right when packing a picnic for Mole which they enjoyed on the river bank. He packed bottles of ginger beer, lemonade, soda water, cold chicken, tongue, ham and beef, pickled gherkins, cress sandwiches and potted meat, all of which would have travelled very well.

Modern picnics seem to consist largely of little plastic boxes of pre-prepared food that supermarkets fill their shelves with at this time of the year - which is where the emphasis on recycling comes in.

By packing the food for your picnic in reusable containers designed to hold food, there is no recycling problem to worry about and by adding the finishing touches when you arrive at the picnic site, there should be very little food waste.

Food packed for a picnic is still best if kept to the basics and finished off on site. Picnics give us all a chance to make the most of fresh seasonal produce, served simply against nature's natural backdrop. If you pack a sharp knife, the tomatoes and salad vegetables can be cut as needed and enjoyed fresh, with none of that stale taste you get when fruit and vegetables are sliced too far in advance. Cold meats can be sliced at the last minute, too. In fact, anything that will break up if tossed about, or spoilt if left in the warm for too long is best left at home.

Obviously, ice packs help the modern picnic-goer to keep the contents of their picnic basket cool, which is something that Ratty certainly didn't have access to. For those enjoying their picnic at the Oxford Botanic Garden, there will be local ice cream on sale and various picnic foods too.

Emma Williams said that the events are a way for people to spend time in the Garden in an informal manner without worrying too much if they don't know much about the plants. She added: "Plants give us so much, food, medicine, clothes and beauty. It's always good to help people remember this and question how we can all do our bit to look after the natural world and protect its fabulous array of plants."

Each picnic session runs from 1pm to 4pm and entry to the Garden is £3. Children are free. For further information go to: botanic-garden.ox.ac.uk