May delight | wild times with Community Apothecary & friends

May 2026 newsletter

Hawthorn blossom with two red berries from last year

happy beltane time to you!

warmth in the skin and brightness everywhere, life singing and humming and chattering, these days of sun are pleasurable and amazing after a long winter, to lay on the earth feeling the restoring absorption of this energy that causes all sorts of vital processes to happen in our bodies, what an ancient relationship with this faraway cosmic body, co-evolved, like so many of our fellow earthly beings.

with the rising energy, there are plenty of things afoot in the human and more-than-human worlds: at Ridley Road Market in Dalston local people and allies gather steadfastly to resist together the forces of capital, gentrification, and ongoing racist and classist attacks on precious long-valued commons spaces and communities, connecting and sharing solidarity with other struggles both nearby and global - they need support for their full-time occupation in protection of traders, if you are local to the area and can offer time or resources; in Tottenham the Family Fight Back have succeeded in negotiating with Haringey council to agree to their first campaign demands to keep their Living Under One Sun community hub open for the summer holidays and work with residents to explore alternatives to its demolition; on the ground and earth the gardens are springing mightily with green joyful growth, Lemon Balm and Calendula and many others glowing and shining, the trees in full madding lime and pulsing green, this moment is always a special one.

and then we are also feeling concern for the dry earth and longing for good soaking rain after a pretty waterless period in london; each year it is more interesting to see and note what thrives in these conditions. things have been early - three corner leek in march not april, hawthorn blossom fully out in april not may, elderflowers out already, it feels like mediterranean patterns. the forest garden at Mulberry Close in Chingford is lush, the exciting assembly of unfurling lovingly-raised baby herbs in Jayne’s nursery want lots of water which is carefully given each week by our garden crew, and we are preparing for our summer open day, on Saturday 16th May, we hope you can come! More details below.

we continue with our weekly and fortnightly herb garden and apothecary sessions around Waltham Forest that you are very welcome to come join. read on to see when and where you can come get herby, and also for a roundup of Maytime happenings in our networks. as the colourful aromatic clamour of the plantlife grows, so more hands and hearts are needed for the work of garden care, weeding, lots of weeding! and composting, harvesting, medicine making, gazing, admiring, marvelling… all of these are done well in company and feel like healing activities so if you can get involved we’re happy to see you.

love from the Community Apothecary crew (Jayne, Jonny, Odhran, Rasheeqa)

Our summer open day at our large Chingford allotment garden will be this month on Saturday 16th May, 11am-3pm. We’ll be offering tours of the site, a mix of plant and herb oriented workshops with community members, lots of those luscious baby herb and food plants for sale for your growing spaces, communal bring-and-share lunch, social time and general summery hanging out with the herbs. Come join us!

We are also inviting people of our community to support on the day, volunteering for short slots guiding people into the site, doing plant sales and other bits of activity - if anyone is up for this, drop us an email! We appreciate if you can.

Gardens news:

Next induction day at Mulberry Close coming up next Thursday 7th May, 11am - if you’d like to come see what we are doing and take part at this large hillside allotment site of medicinal forest garden, herb hill, food and fruit cultivation, and more, you can join the induction and become part of the crew! As the summer comes on we are definitely in need of energy here for all the work - a mix of more physical and strenuous (weeding, woodchipping, bed-making, planting) and gentle and meditative (herb harvesting, processing, watering, birdwatching) depending how you are feeling. It’s a beautiful nourishing place to spend a Thursday.
Our Leyton garden Tuesdays, 1st & 3rd of each month (10am-4pm), are smaller sites with peaceful herb cultivation, learning, tasting and communing with healing plants for our nervous systems, hormonal balance, skin and digestion, more hands also welcome here. And Fridays at Cheney Row in Walthamstow, where Time To Grow members are raising lots of veg, alongside our perennial herbs for the lungs and immune system, happen every 2 weeks on the 2nd and 4th Friday of each month, 1-3pm, if you are local and want to come join a short session in an abundant space with herbal tea and practical learning.

See the list of garden sessions here; you can put your name down for any you want to join in our sign-up calendar, but if you are coming for the first time do please send us an email for the necessary infos including the link to the calendar.

Apothecary news:

Hornbeam Apothecary sessions have continued full and busy this year on our fortnightly Wednesdays (1st & 3rd of each month, 11am-1pm followed by community lunch 1-2pm). Now as we get into the swing of harvesting time there are lots of herbs coming in to dry and make medicine with. May sessions with Odhran and Jayne will be focusing on nervous system nourishing herbs - ‘nervines’ - and making blends, as well as learning how to process, dry and store herbs well for healthy use through the year. Next week 6th May will be a fragrant one, with plans to make the ancient lifegiving recipe Carmelite Water with the abundance of fresh Lemon Balm of the moment. If you are interested in joining these sessions and haven’t before, please email us and we’ll send you the sign-up calendar.
Hornbeam Wednesdays are also the chance for you to get herbs and remedies from our shop (open 10am-4pm) -we have a large selection of dried herbs from the gardens as well as seasonally wild-crafted from local lands, and a range of simple medicines for your home healthcare and wellbeing, with healing balms, infused vinegars, oils, syrups, tea blends and tinctures for first aid and minor ailments. See our current stock list here. Proceeds from medicine sales go into sustaining our project.

Maytime Herb Focus

This month the amazing Calendula or Pot Marigold is dazzling our senses with its colour, luminous in the light - this flower that does bloom almost all year round, giving the name which refers to this power of presence every ‘calend’ or month (Latin name origin). But summer is its full power season, that sunlight that stirs our bones also triggering their growth, and every week now they are opening, following the path of the sun, and we are picking!

The deep potent orange colour, signifying carotenoid plant pigment compounds that are described as highly antioxidant in pharmacological terms but in terms of soul and spirit is something incredible on the eyes and heart; the sticky resin of the flowerheads that attaches enticingly and fragrantly to our fingers as we pick them; the way they open and close with the day’s sun journey. The flowers ripen into heads of interesting bug-shaped seeds (Ximena once talked about this maybe being an evolutionary detail to attract birds to spread them!) that drop and grow into new plants so you will have them ongoingly through the years, loyal and loving and really giving and abundant.

In the earth ecosystems Calendula is one who brings plenty of pollinating insects, and is valued as a companion plant with vegetables for attracting aphids and whiteflies away from them. Their medicine in humans is multiple and generous, supporting digestion and lymphatic function and protecting from infection internally, and topically having a rich tradition of use as a healer of the tissues especially our skin.

We dry our bright flowers and then infuse them in oil in a jar in the garden, in the summer sun through these months, to make a healing skin salve - we are starting this process now. If any of you around Waltham Forest gardens have an abundance of Calendula flowers, and won’t be using them, we would welcome them to the stocks for the balm - community-sourced medicine! However you can dry your flowers for teas if you have lots as well, they bring a lovely sunshine element for later in the year when it is the darker season. Here, you can see an info sheet with guidance for the Calendula Balm, ‘from seed to salve’, so you can follow the journey yourself, and make this simple but beautiful and effective remedy for skin inflammation, rashes, minor cuts and abrasions.

Herbal Happenings of early summer 2026

Thursday 7 May, 6–8.30pm - Beltane Gathering at OmVed Gardens, Highgate, north London, by artist Alisa Ruzavina and Kincenctric Leadership: To honour Beltane's vitality we will work with ritual, elements and directions, move through our animal bodies, sound bird calls, and craft flower crowns from plants sacred to the season, discovering their medicinal qualities and ecological lives. A small number of reserved tickets are available at a subsidised rate if the workshop is not monetarily accessible, email the garden for those.

Sunday 10th May, 10.30am-1pm - Radicle Tree Walk London - Ravenscourt Park: Than & Claire are awesome with a rich combination of knowledge and skills as horticultural educator, medical herbalist and both community food growers with broad interests. This special event is part of the Urban Tree Festival 2026 - Radicle Plant Walks weave together botany, horticulture, herbalism, foraging and social history to explore local plantscapes in their fullest sense.

Tuesday 12th May, 6.30-8.30pm, online workshop - Home Herbalism - Plants for stress, mental health and immunity ✨ with Laz the Plant Scientist: Rebecca is a passionate fount of knowledge and info and is bringing this online session sharing about the loss of traditional medical and ethnobotanical knowledge and her conservation project researching and protecting this in her home island of Cyprus - proceeds will support this work. Will be rich :)

Starting Sunday 17th May, 1-5pm - 6-week Introduction to Herbal Medicine course with Granville Community Kitchen, Kilburn: Led by herbalist & grower Aimee Georgiou Lormand and Elise Yard, trainee herbalist & grower, this will be superb learning and connection, exploring herbalism for our body systems in the context of ‘the living green pharmacy that grows all around us’ and movements for community empowerment.

Saturday 30th May, 11am-2pm, St Mary’s Churchyard, Walthamstow village - Rooted in Community event: plants, plant chat, craft, stalls and mooching about in the sun! More info to follow on Tim Hewitt Gardener’s insta who coordinates garden activity for local residents here at this churchyard.

Sunday 31st May, 10am-5pm, Spitalfields City Farm - Summer Fayre! with sheep shearing, family fun, a market and some live music! Our herbalist Odhran will be present with a selection of Community Apothecary remedies, and some herbal action :) Look out for more details to come on the farm’s insta

Starting Monday 1st June, 11am-2pm, for 4 weeks, a new series with Rasheeqa Ahmad (herbalist of Hedge Herbs & Community Apothecary) - Earth Listening: Gathering on a Monday morning in a local wild space, to connect, commune and eat together while hearing and tuning into the earth’s voices. To bring a habitual moment of peace and beyond-human exploration of our habitats. You are warmly invited to join.

Saturday 6th June, 12noon-5pm, Core Arts Community Garden, behind St Barnabas Church, Homerton High St, London E9 6DL - Connection to Nature in Hackney: EcoActive and Core Landscapes are hosting a summer event together celebrating Hackney’s greening movement, and all the incredible people who care about it. ‘Many of us face barriers to the world of ecology, biodiversity, gardening, and horticulture. This event will welcome folk at all stages of their green journey, both those who have never planted a seed before and are new to greening, and those who are already an urban rewilding whizz and love bees, butterflies, fungi and other living things. This event is for anyone who lives on this planet!’ Community Apothecary and Hackney Herbal will both be taking part in the event with workshop activity, always a joy with the Core Landscapes crew, in their beautiful churchyard garden in Homerton. Come join the fun 🍃🌸🌻👩🏾‍🌾🪲

The Mobile Apothecary in Bethnal Green, based out of the Nature Reserve project there, is doing a fundraiser event on Sunday 10th May, 1-5pm, when you can visit the medicine garden and get involved in herbal activities. This project makes and shares medicine with under-served communities in Hackney and is raising funds after the theft of their cargo bike, through the sale of pledges in the form of artworks, remedies and much more… find out more here

And here you can donate to the crowdfunder and have a look at all the rewards pledged! which you can buy to support the project.

Introducing: Earth Listening

A new weekly series with Rasheeqa, inviting you to come together in wild(ish) spaces in our local land, to explore sensing the earth, alone & together. Starting Monday 1st June, 11am-2pm, for 4 weeks. You can join all, or just one - info & booking here

Musings on the Unwanted Weeds

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