Farringdon’s Edible Forest

Over the course of Spring and Summer 2025, we held a series of edible forest workshops with Octopus Community Network, re-creating the seven layers of a forest garden, with edible planting that includes a saltbush, passionfruit, grape vine, chard, blueberry, juneberry and even a fig or two.

We were lucky enough to have a mushroom inoculation workshop led by the legendary Susy Langsdale from Stepney City Farm. Together, we drilled, hammered, waxed and positioned our pile of carefully sliced and locally sourced plane tree logs. With a fair wind, a weekly water and a bit of good luck, we're hoping to see blue-grey oyster mushrooms sprouting up in the coming months (or years...it can take a while!). You can check them out by the wildlife pond.

The project wouldn’t be complete without throwing a dash of history in the mix! In 18th century London, tea gardens became popular places of relaxation and socialising. So our own Tea Garden provides a great conversation starter with visitors; we have half a dozen varieties of mint, as well as ginger, lemon verbena, jasmine and Camellia sinensis (black tea) on display. And local children have become Clerkenwell Herb Heroes, with their stunning pots of wild strawberries flanking the Welcome Board, a modern take on Shakespeare’s reference to the ‘good strawberries’ of  Ely Place, referenced in Richard III, which is a stone’s throw from the Garden.

We’re loving history but very much planting for the future, working with Islington Tree Service and The Orchard Project to plan and plant a community orchard for Winter 2026. Arboreal training for volunteers is underway and we’ll be getting shade-tolerant species such as crab apple, morello cherry, hazel and chequers tree in the ground next year, with a view to growing the next generation of tree canopy.