News & Events
Hackney Herbal workshops in April
start Sunday 6th April
Join Hackney Herbal for their programme of workshops that show you how to use herbs in a creative way
Sunday 6th April ,2:30pm-5pm, Herb Walk at Hackney Marshes, Hackney Marshes Pavilion, Mandeville St, London E5 0SW
Saturday 12th April, 10am-1pm, Herbal Wellbeing Masterclass, Hackney Herbal CIC, Unit 16, Celia Fiennes House, 8-20 Well St, London E9 7PX
Sunday 13th April, 2pm-5pm, Grow Your Own Herbs Masterclass, Hackney Herbal Garden, The Trowbridge Centre, 1 Trowbridge Rd, London E9 5LD
For more details and booking see Hackney Herbal website
Permaculture Gardens Campfire with Huw Richards
Tuesday 8th April, 6:30pm
online
Huw now has over 800k subscribers on Youtube, and over 100 million views on his gardening videos which are dedicated to empowering people to grow their own food. Join us for this permaculture campfire event where Huw will be sharing his journey and insights on how to work in harmony with nature, the ethics, principles and permaculture tools that he has found most useful, along with examples from his garden, tips on how you can apply permaculture to your life, community and garden too! PLUS there will be the exciting opportunity to ask Huw your burning questions. Go to event page for more details and booking.
Traditional wool skills course – an introduction to spinning, dyeing and felting
Wednesdays 9th, 30th April, 14th, 28th May, 6.30pm-8.30pm
Kentish Town City Farm, NW5 4BN
Come along to learn about the traditions of hand-spinning with a drop-spindle and felting. This introductory course will start by meeting the Jacobs sheep at the Kentish Town City Farm whose wool we’ll be spinning. You’ll learn how to use a drop spindle and once spun we’ll ply into yarn and then dye with plant dyes. Finally you’ll learn how to make felt, making a felt pouch.
£120.00 – £10 discount using code LPNWOOL
Timetable:
Week 1: Meet the Jacob’s sheep and their wool. Learn about processing wool: washing and carding. Start spinning with a drop spindle.
Week 2: Focus on spinning with a drop spindle. Learning about plying and fulling.
Week 3: Dyeing the yarn you have spun. Learning about mordanting and dyeing with plant dyes.
Week 4: Learning about felting and how to make felt. Make a felt pouch.
No experience necessary. For details and to book, see website
Happier Outdoors
Friday 11th April 11am-3pm
Forest Farm Peace Garden, Hazelbrouck Gardens, Ilford IG6 2XL
We are having an open garden as part of the London wide Happier Outdoors festival run by Natural England. This event is open to the local community and those people who refer to us such as GPs and Social Prescribers. There will be children’s activities, a weed identification walk and talk, a chance to meet the team and see how they carry out their vital work. Of course there is also the mandatory tea and cakes. FREE ENTRY! For more details see FFPG website
Mushroom Cultivation for Beginners
Saturday 12th April,10:30am-4:30pm
Organic Lea Hawkwood Nursery, 115 Hawkwood Crescent, London, E4 7UH
This one day workshop will deliver the foundational principles for cultivating many of the mushrooms considered edible and medicinal. At the end of this workshop you will have the basic knowledge you need to take your first steps in the home cultivation of both edible and medicinal mushrooms. This workshop will also generate material which you can take home to start your growing straight away! Standard fee £65, for details and booking see the event page.
Seed Sowing for Beginners
Saturday 12th April,10:30am-4:30pm
Organic Lea Hawkwood Nursery, 115 Hawkwood Crescent, London, E4 7UH
This course is aimed at beginners, who are interested in understanding seeds and how to care for them especially when you want them to germinate and become a healthy plant! At the end of the course, you will be equipped with a foundational knowledge of seed sowing and be able to apply this to start your own setting. You will also take some of the seeds you have sown on the day home with you. Standard fee £65, for details and booking see the event page.
Forest garden maintenance at the Cecil Sharp House Garden
Wednesday 16th, 23rd & 30th April, 10am-12.30pm
Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent’s Park Road, London NW1 7AY
Cecil Sharp House is a Permaculture Learning and Demonstration Site (LAND project). Our April sessions will be teaching about irrigation and other watering solutions, potting up plants to sell on our plant stall at the London Permaculture Festival, planting seeds and supporting the climbing plants in the garden. Everyone welcome. If you’d like to come along to either or both of the sessions please let us know and RSVP to info@permablitzlondon.com.
Learn about unusual edible perennials
Saturday 19th April, 12pm-3.30pm
Cecil Sharp House, Camden NW1 7AY
Cecil Sharp House has a wide range of unusual edible perennials growing in the edible, wildlife-friendly permaculture garden. Join this workshop to see them growing in the garden and eat their foraged leaves in our lunchtime forest garden salad. You’ll also learn about their useful functions and how to incorporate them in a permaculture design of mutually supportive plant communities. We’ll finish with a practical session in the garden to pot up some of the plants and you’ll be able to take a pot away with you. A simple lunch is included. Organised by Permablitz London – Tickets £50 – details and booking at website.
Garden design with natural dye plants
Wednesday 23rd April, 6.30pm-8.30pm
Kentish Town City Farm, NW5 4BN
This workshop will outline how to include natural dye plants into your garden design. It will explain which plants to consider: the colours they will produce and/or how they can be used for eco-printing. You will also learn when are the best times to plant seeds and harvest from the plants. The evening will include a practical session of planting seeds for the dye garden at Kentish Town City Farm and you’ll be able to take some seeds away with you. Organised by Permablitz London – Tickets: £30 Details and booking on website
Grow a Herb Garden
Saturday 26th April 2025
The Victorian Walled Garden, Ecolocal, The Lodge, Honeywood walk, Carshalton SM5 3NX
Learn how to propagate and grow your own tasty herbs and edible flowers to add flavour and vibrancy to your meals. Filling our outdoor spaces with herbs and edible flowers adds welcome scent and colour for us and benefits our urban wildlife too. Created and delivered by our RHS qualified tutor, the workshop includes lots of information and a pot of cuttings to take home. Learn how to sow seeds, take simple herb cuttings, suggestions of edible flowers to grow at home, recipe ideas. Cost £26. For more details and booking see the website.
London Permaculture Design Course – Creating Resilient Communities
starts Saturday 26th April (until Sunday 19th October)
Paper Garden, Teredo St, London SE16 7LW
The Permaculture Design Course is a 72-hour often life-changing experience, accredited by the UK Permaculture Association. Over the period of 6 weekends between April 26th and October 19th 2025 we will explore practical and creative solutions for building resilient communities and designing abundant eco-systems. We will discover how we can work with, rather than against nature to fulfil our human needs whilst caring for the earth and the people. For more details and booking see the website
Spring Foraging Talk and Tour
Saturday 26th April, 11am-3:30pm
Forest Farm Peace Garden, Hazelbrouck Gardens, Ilford IG6 2XL
Join forager & ethnobotanist Aaron for a hands on talk and tour to learn about wild edible plants and forage some of your own food to taste. In this hands on workshop you will get a talk and tour of the wild plants in our beautiful Peace Garden as well as some background info and practical tips and practice of foraging so that you can go home and find edible plants near where you live. Tickets are £25 for the day or you could purchase this with our Autumn foraging event for £40 saving £10. Price includes refreshments (bring your own lunch). More details and booking on FFPG website.
Natural dyeing: Reds and yellows with Madder and Weld
Saturday 26th April 12.30pm-4.30pm
Calthorpe Community Garden, 258-274 Gray’s Inn Road, London, WC1X 8LH
Very few plants produce a red dye. We’ll be using the traditional Madder to produce a range of reds and pinks. The roots of madder have been used for thousands of years in England because the plant is hardy enough to survive our winters. We’ll dip-dye to blend with yellow from Weld and over-dye to create oranges. Afternoon tea and cake is included and you’ll take away two silk scarves that you’ve dyed during the course. £60 £5 discount = £55 for LPN newsletter readers using code LPNRED – book tickets on the event website.
Free Webinar: Companion Planting with Annual Vegetables and Crop Rotation
Tuesday 29th April, 5pm
online
In this free 90 minute webinar you will learn how companion planting in rows works, hHow companion planting in beds works and how crop rotation helps your annual vegetables and raises yields. Will answer individual questions during the webinar. To book at place see the website.
Forthoming Events
Alternative Business Models Online training course
1st, 8th and 15th May, 10am-1pm
Online
This training is designed to build knowledge and capacity around alternative business models, focusing on those used by co-operatives and community businesses. It also explores the support landscape and key considerations when advising groups adopting these models. The course is ideal for business advisors, local authority colleagues, and anyone interested in fostering a more inclusive economy. Cost £300 (includes VAT) See website for more details.
Three Acres And A Cow
Thursday 1 May, 7pm
Cecil Sharp House, London
The show connects the Norman Conquest and Peasants’ Revolt with current issues like the housing crisis, reparations, climate breakdown and food sovereignty via the Enclosures, English Civil War, Irish Land League and Industrial Revolution, drawing a compelling narrative through the radical people’s history of England in folk song, stories and poems. Book tickets here.
Find and identify biodiversity in your garden
Thursday 1st May 6pm
Islington Ecology Centre, 191 Drayton Park, London, N5 1PH
This taster session is for anyone interested in finding and documenting wildlife in their outdoor spaces. Explore a range of survey techniques tailored to different animal groups, including pitfall traps, sweep nets, moth traps, leaf litter sieves, camera traps, and bioacoustic recorders. You’ll receive guidance on identifying various animal groups, highlighting resources to aid identification and recommendations of animal groups that are beginner-friendly. Best practices for recording wildlife observations will be covered, along with step-by-step guidance on how to upload biodiversity data to national recording schemes. Organised by Capital Growth – see website for more details.
Organic Food Growing Course
starts Saturday 3rd May
Carshalton Community Allotment (Access between 33-35 Colston Avenue) SM5 2PW and online
If you are just starting out, or would like to get some more detailed knowledge of organic food growing, then this course is for you. Over 6 weeks you will learn everything you need to know to confidently grow your own fruit and veg. including preparing your growing area the organic way, planning what to grow including crop rotation, planting techniques, taking care of your plants without chemicals, organic techniques and feeding your soil, harvesting and storing produce. Fee £85 for the course. For more details and booking see the website.
Level 2 Award in Forest Gardening
Tuesday 6th May, 7pm -9pm
Online
Learn all the skills you need to design, create and manage a forest garden through our seven month accredited online course, featuring the videos of Martin Crawford, author of several books on forest gardening and director of the Agroforestry Research Trust. You will learn from videos, handouts, interactive quizzes and online assessments plus regular group tutorials, leading you to qualify for a Level 2 Award in Forest Gardening. This course is accredited by the Crossfields Institute. We’ve been running our Award in Forest Gardening course since 2021. Course fee £800 with some concessions available – booking and details on website.
Grow Back Better Full Permaculture Design Course
starts Saturday 10th May
Organic Lea Hawkwood Nursery, 115 Hawkwood Crescent, London, E4 7UH
Running from May to October at OrganicLea’s 12-acre Hawkwood community growing site on the edge of Epping Forest, we will come together over six weekends for a regenerative learning experience, enabling individuals, organisations, and communities to apply permaculture principles and create empowering solutions to the real-world challenges we are all facing. Adapted from the Permaculture Association (Britain)’s PDC core curriculum, this is a person-centred, fun, lively, and inclusive course that explores permaculture ethics, principles, and design skills, utilising concepts including food growing, forest gardening, systems thinking, ecological building, community empowerment, skill-sharing, right livelihoods, and much more.
This is a unique opportunity to learn about Permaculture with instructor Graham Burnett, author of ‘Permaculture: A Beginner’s Guide’, ‘The Vegan Book of Permaculture’, and ‘Make Compost, Not Work’, and an experienced Permaculture Designer. For more information or to book your place go to the event page on website.
Events outside London
The Permaculture Association lists courses and events throughout Britain (and beyond!). For details of events happeing outside London, go to the Events Page, and for details of courses held nationally see the Courses Page.
Permaculture Magazine
Permaculture magazine – earth care, people care, future care is a visionary magazine that will give you the tools needed to create productive and resilient homes, gardens, economies, relationships, schools, farms and communities. Our range of articles includes no-dig gardening, food forests, cutting edge community projects, renewable technologies, regenerative agriculture, DIY & upcycling projects, natural building, education and wellbeing. It is full of solutions, projects and pioneering ideas from the very best of the permaculture movement.
Also, all subscribers get a whopping 25% discount off of Permanent Publications books – Buying from them directly is the equivalent of shopping locally and helps to keep revenues within the permaculture community.
21st Century Permaculture Radio
Archive programmes available at https://www.mixcloud.com/21stcenturypermaculture/
Brighton Permaculture Trust
Head to the Brighton Permaculture Trust. Check out their website for news of courses, events and Permaculture by the sea. They are running a number of Online permaculture, Eco Build, and gardening courses. See the website for more details and booking.
London Permaculture Network – Interactive Project Map
The London Permaculture network has launched a map of permaculture, and permaculture-friendly projects in London. Go to https://www.londonpermaculture.com/map/ to see it. Use the map to guide yourself around the projects in your local area, and the whole of London.
This map is still being developed, and we would love your project to be included! If you would like your project added to the map please contact us at info@londonpermaculture.com
How do I get events and webinars in the newsletter?
If you want your webinars, offline & online events, and announcements to be in the London Permaculture Network newsletter (sent out at the start of each month), please email them to us, at info@londonpermaculture.com before the 15th of the month, and they will go into the next month’s newsletter.