ABOUT US
Who are we?
We are an educational forest garden project led by a team of passionate permaculturists.
Together we love connecting within our landscapes, learning to grow food in community guided by nature, and creating biodiverse habitat spaces. Our work originated in the Transition movement in 2010. Now the forest garden contains over 200 species of low-maintenance, edible or useful perennials. We warmly welcome our diverse community in weekly sessions and workshops.
Our work
Our focus is around forest gardening. Creating habitats, food and materials for both wildlife and people.
Onsite, we hold volunteer sessions twice a week, plus a variety of workshops on permaculture, regenerative practice, natural crafts and plant wisdom. The site hosts a special garden for dye plants, and an area for mushrooms. Our team offers outdoor education for school groups, and Forest Explorers sessions for families. Alongside this, we welcome SEN groups, students completing PHDs and Duke of Edinburgh Awards. Offsite, our outreach work partners us with communities from different backgrounds, creating gardens in North London.
The garden provides a place for us to remember that we are a part of the land, that everyone belongs. A valuable place to share ideas, learn and explore. Forest gardens are designed by observing the way plants would exist in a forest edge ecosystem, in harmony with the rhythms of a forest.
Through planting forest gardens we serve to empower our communities, offering a direct response to many important issues of our time, such as climate change, biodiversity loss and the need for interconnection within our landscapes.
Above: events and workshops in the forest garden, Finsbury Park
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Our Team
Project Coordinator – Alex Gomar
Forest Garden Facilitator – Mirjam Johansson
Forest Explorers Facilitator – Aurora Bellingham
Directors –
Anne Barwick
Sarah Bush
Les Coupland
Rosanna Crawford
Alicia Dadlani
Vitalina Makakenko
Chris Mitchell
Vanessa Morris
Kerstin Robinson
Linda Royles
Imogen Simmonds
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Our aims
- To provide a nurturing, wildlife-friendly community space with a focus on forest gardening – growing food whilst increasing biodiversity and resilience
- To increase awareness around forest gardening, and related subjects such as sustainability, biodiversity, soil science and climate change
- To host outdoor education, introducing these subjects, for students of all ages and backgrounds
- To support community food growing projects by donating propagated plants and offering advice
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Why are we doing this?
Forest gardens create an environment for joy and regeneration. When we plant a forest garden, we are empowering ourselves, and all who pass by, to engage, grow, experiment, and play. To share ideas and community
By planting food forests, we serve to actively regenerate our landscapes. These resilient forest gardens will grow into the future. Sequestering carbon, protecting soils, and providing a source of food and materials for us and our wider family of species. Here is a brief introduction to forest gardens, and the benefits.
This video interview features Jo Homan who founded ELL. She explains a bit more about forest gardens, the benefits, for anyone getting started.
Empowering communities to act in response to the global issues of climate change and biodiversity loss is a heartfelt aspect of our work. We facilitate space for people to come together, and reimagine our shared future.
These gardens provide us with a grassroots response to many of the challenges of our time. Many now recognise that modern farming is a major cause of the pollution of air, soil and rivers. Driving the destruction of biodiversity, accelerating deforestation and climate change. In our urbanised lives, we have become disconnected from our food systems, from the community of nature. In planting forest gardens, we can initiate a paradigm shift.
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Our beginnings and growings
Edible Landscapes London was founded in 2010. We pioneered the first accredited course in forest gardening, while training hundreds of students in plant propagation, permaculture and other related subjects. Below are some short films from our young site, with more about the vision:
Want a quick tour of the site? From the initial shoots it has now become a young forest. You can see for yourself in a video tour here.
If you would like access to previous articles written about our work, please get in touch.
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Finding us
We’re in Finsbury Park itself, three minutes walk from Manor House tube (Piccadilly line) and bus stops – 253, 254, 29, 141, 341 buses. Enter Finsbury Park by the Manor House entrance and turn right. Follow the metal fence round, past the entrance to the greenhouse area, until you find our new entrance.
You can find us on What3Words with awake.sage.gentle
On Google Maps, you can find our location with postcode N4 2NQ
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