By Susannah Hall The annual London Permaculture Festival is held in the beautiful Arts & Crafts building of Cecil Sharp House in Camden, London. Launched in 2010 the festival offers the choice of 20 workshops, a stalls market including a pop-up unusual edibles plant stall and activities for families. Each year it attracts around 600 people. The venue, Cecil Sharp House, is the home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) and has an award-winning permaculture garden that demonstrates edible, sustainable and wildlife-friendly gardening. Designed by Kayode Olafimihan, it was installed through permablitzes and is now maintained by Permablitz London. In reciprocity Cecil Sharp House/EFDSS donate the house and garden for the festival. This means the festival ticket prices can be kept at an affordable level, at the same time as paying speakers. Create your own workshop program One of the main attractions of the festival is the range of workshops that cover different aspects of permaculture. This year you can choose from twenty! There are four different workshop spaces, so you can browse the timetable to create your own program for the day. Explore the timetable An example of the workshops on offer, to whet your appetite Author and Soil Association Magazine editor, Sally Morgan, will be delivering a session on building resilience in your growing space in the face of climate change or for smaller urban growing spaces. Susannah Hall’s workshop about designing an award-winning multi-functional balcony will draw on her experience of growing over sixty different plants, keeping quails, having a wormery and using a small space for natural dyes. Camila Barboza lives on a boat where she composts her humanure and uses it to grow chillies on her roof. She will be demystifying the composting process and introducing the invisible composting creatures we rely on to decompose. Dr Jenny Goodman’s new book 'Getting Healthy in Toxic Times' will be out just after the festival, but you will be able to hear her speak about how to deal with the toxins that surround us and buy early signed copies of the book. Maddy Harland, editor of Permaculture Magazine is exploring how we can rewild, both the land and ourselves. She will be considering whether rewilding is about just leaving the land, or whether there are principles and practices that can be followed? You might want to combine learning about Sustainable and creative ways to refashion clothing, with finding out about designing and building your own Tiny House with Ed Dale-Harris, or hear about Randy Mayer’s experience of living in an intentional community. For those new to permaculture, there are introductions to the topic throughout the day. A highlight not to be missed will be Andy Goldring, CEO of the Permaculture Association, giving an introduction, along with Nat Mady from Hackney Herbal and Rishil Parekh from Holistic Design and Craft. Stalls market The festival is a great place to network, with a stalls market in the beautiful Kennedy Hall hosting a range of different organisations sharing information and selling sustainable goods. The festival operates a cake currency: stallholders pay with 2 cakes which we sell to raise money towards festival costs. This year there will be two bookstalls, Permaculture Magazine and Chelsea Green publishing, with great discounts on their books. Jahmale, a master tailor, is giving a talk about sustainable fashion and will be selling recycled denim items as well as offering to repair denim clothes that you can bring along. You can also meet Fat Fox Mushrooms, one of the workshop facilitators, a company selling mushroom kits and teaching about the health benefits of mushrooms you can grow at home. To book a stall email [email protected] Pop-up Unusual Edibles plant stall Cecil Sharp House permaculture garden runs an unusual edibles plant stall at the festival. It is very popular since it offers the chance to buy plants rarely seen for sale in London. The plants are supplied by Edulis nursery and the Cecil Sharp House garden and this year plants will include Japanese Wineberries, Houttuynia Cordata, Garlic Cress (Peltaria Alliacea), Siberian purslane (Montia Sibirica) and a variety of unusual mints for sale among many other others. Families at the Festival We encourage families to come to the festival – tickets for under 18s are free. Many of the stalls are participating in Families at the Festival, where children can explore the festival with their parents. Children will be able to make and decorate their own treasure box and then pick up treasures from the stalls. They will be able to meet chickens from Kentish Town City Farm, along with Quails in the City and follow the wildlife trail around the walled garden. There will also be face painting and pixel art, as well as learning about how plants grow from Cheeseplant Books. The festival is a great day out with a chance to learn, network, eat tea and cake and relax in the garden, depending how the mood takes you. If you’d like to come along tickets cost £20 (£15 early bird) or £10 concessionary. Book my ticket Tags London permaculture events event Summer Events Copied to clipboard