Meet Finsbury Park's 'edible landscapes' community

Bethany Anderson lifts the lid on an awe inspiring eco-initiative in Finsbury Park

Edible Landscapes is a community garden and education project that has been inside Finsbury Park for over ten years. We specialise in forest gardening, a food growing system that mimics natural ecosystems, involving a variety
of perennial plants and trees. We have drop-in volunteer sessions twice a week to help Londoners learn to grow their own food, and to propagate plants that we give away to local projects and sell to the local community.

We run a variety of community workshops on related subjects; host local schools for outdoor education; run after-school nature clubs and a parent and toddler drop in; help adults with special educational needs gain experience in gardening; and partner with Salters Institute on their wild city project teaching biodiversity and building new forest gardens in schools. The seven-layer, pesticide-free system of fruit and nut trees, perennial crops, fruit bushes, climbers, medicinal and dye plants means small spaces can be designed for maximum yields.

In a time where we have high levels of declining biodiversity, obesity, deprivation, mental ill health and social isolation, a cost-of-living and climate crisis and limited protection and investment in our green spaces, community forest gardens have never been more important.

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