herbals in a hot time | July news from Community Apothecary

Meadowsweet in flower on Walthamstow Marshes, late June 2026

hello and summer greetings from us all at Community Apothecary,

We hope that you are finding a balance of cool in the heat of these weeks. As well as being pleasurable for those feeling the lifegiving sun power in our bones and flesh, the intensity brings plenty of discomfort for us humans and concern for the ecosystems we depend on and the plants and earth we are cherishing and nurturing.

The incredible volatile smells of the herbs in the gardens and wilds these days, distilled into the air by the sun rays, are a strong sensory reminder of the medicinal power they hold, and the cooling and freshening protection they offer from the high heat and the effects of it in our environment - putrid bin smells included… Putting our noses into a big bunch of herbs is a relief. And in our bodies those aromatic compounds can relax, de-constrict and decongest, sharpen focus and memory, promote calm and ease - our cells and tissues and organs recognise their molecules. They’re amazing. Here’s a poem honouring their places in our relationships, cultures and histories, by Leyla K Feghali who wrote the book Land In Our Bones which has inspired our monthly Herb Focus Hour in July - details about this below, we invite you to join us for it.

This month is a high summer moment with some exciting herb harvests from the gardens and the wild lands. Herb Hill at Mulberry Close in Chingford is ever more populated and thriving with Jayne and crew’s careful collaboration with soil and plants and water and landscape, last week we harvested Goat’s Rue to infuse into vinegar for a blood-sugar regulating remedy, and Helichrysum or Curry plant to make an infused oil for skin healing, as well as setting up the solar infused oils of Calendula and St John’s Wort to absorb the energy of the season and go into healing balms in a couple of months. At the Leyton gardens & Cheney Row we have had some excellent crew joining for the summer tasks of watering, picking Clary Sage, Clover, Spearmint for aromatic tea blends and sharing wonder. The exuberance of life in the garden is startling and eye-delighting!

We’ve been venturing out for some visits as well to fellow community garden projects, spending a gorgeous rainy day at Core Landscapes with ecoActive for their summer greening garden party earlier in June and offering a tea blending workshop with our dried herbs, then last weekend a Saturday afternoon session at the Reapers Garden in Chingford, exploring how medicine plants support rich biodiversity and ecosystem health along with our health, as their fellow beings.

We hope we’ll see you in the garden or apothecary this summer - please read on for this month’s herbal happenings with us and friends, and especially to find out about our double-session focus on Za’atar (a herb and spice blend made with Wild Thyme that forms a precious part of heritage in Palestine and many other lands of the eastern Mediterranean) at Mulberry (Thursday 9th July) and the Hornbeam (Wednesday 15th July), with our brilliant friend Mayya, who has supported our project through her previous work with Sustain, and brings a lively eye and tender sensibility to our themes with these two gatherings, of intercultural herbalism, land justice and solidarity and the power of the aromatics in our food and medicine. It’ll be good to have you if you can join us. We also have an update about our Hornbeam programme with some new developments from September time. We wish you a healthful and easeful summer.

with love, Community Apothecary crew

A Hornbeam Apothecary update:

We have been running our fortnightly Hornbeam Herbal sessions since the start of 2025, open to all, and it’s been a rich journey so far of learning, sharing, community medicine making/using and collective healthcare work. As a Community Interest Company with limited core funding (with big thanks to Necessity) and having to keep applying for more grants to sustain the majority of our work, we do not have a specific pot of money for the Hornbeam activity. Having been able to offer the sessions for free until now (and asking for donations towards costs) using the core funding which is finite and not guaranteed to be the same amount each year, we are at a point where we can’t continue to do this.

We’re in the process of applying for a pot of funds for the Hornbeam, but until we are able to secure that we will have to start charging for the Apothecary sessions. We want to let you all know in advance, with the plan being to start doing this from start of September 2026. The charge will be on a sliding scale between £2.50-£10 per session per person, we ask that you would pay what you can best afford each time. We will update you further about this in next month’s newsletter with more details & how it will work.

Za’atar: food, medicine, foraging, land, history, culture, politics and more

On Thursday 9th July + Wednesday 15th July, we are hosting a pair of sessions at Mulberry garden and the Hornbeam, meeting the herbs that make up the spice mix za’atar, sacred to the lands of the eastern Mediterranean, and learning some of the stories beneath and in and around them.

With special guest Mayya of Foodisms, we will find the plant kin of this blend growing in the garden here in London, share knowledge and practices from across cultures with these herbs, gather some to dry and prepare our own blend, and at the Hornbeam session make mixtures together after learning with Mayya the recipe variations from her home cultures of Palestine and Lebanon through a diasporic lens. We are excited to bring this, with some of the impetus for it being around protecting and preserving land-loving heritages, connecting locally & globally and sharing across cultures with respect and solidarity.

We invite you to the Mulberry garden session (plant stories, harvesting, tea tasting) on Thursday 9th July for Za’atar herb focus hour which will be after lunch from around 2.30pm. Get in touch if you’d like to come and haven’t been to Mulberry garden before. The Hornbeam session (making za’atar and manaeesh - Palestinian flatbreads - to eat together) on Wednesday 15th July has limited capacity, but if you are keen to join and haven’t been to Hornbeam before, please email us and we can let you know if there are any spaces.

Summertime Herbal Happenings

Saturday 5th July, 12-4pm at Walthamstow Wildside Community Garden, behind the Community Sauna Baths, 47 Sutherland Road, E17 - ‘WE NEED YOU for a big volunteer push. We’ll be undertaking various garden related activities but mainly creating some much needed planting areas for our apothecary garden where we’ll be growing lots of types of medicinal herbs and plants… If this sounds like a bit of you stick it in your diaries and we’ll see you there’ - come get stuck in, we’ll be bringing some of our Community Apothecary propagated garden herbs to home in this lively new community garden space near Blackhorse Road in Walthamstow :)

Queer Herbalism workshops with our herbalist Odhran:

Saturday 5th July, 7-9pm, Queer Herbalism at the Common Press, Bethnal Green: Experience three herbs through a blind tea tasting before learning about them from a queer perspective.

Saturday 12th July, 10am-3pm at Walworth Garden: In this full day of Queer Herbal Medicine, we'll go on a herb walk sharing queer folklore and history of herbs, before delving in the uses of herbs to support elements of queer health and making a small balm to take home.

Friday 10th July from 3-7.30pm + Wednesday 17th July 10-2.30pm, with our friend Sue Wheat of Good Life Tours: TWO SUMMER 'PATTERNS OF NATURE' WALKS
Sue has two new dates for your diaries and ‘they are very special, summer, nature walks, with a nature-themed uber-special artist talk at the end, so will be exceptionally lovely. It will be a fun and inspiring 'Patterns of Nature walk' along the River Lea from Walthamstow to Leyton, ending in a 1.5 hour curated artists' studio tour at Artworks East. Meet at St James Street train station in Walthamstow and walk through the beautiful Walthamstow Wetlands, to the Waterworks Centre and Victorian filterbeds, accompanied by a nature-focused artist.

Our ultimate destination is the Symbioses: Living Together exhibition at Artworks East gallery in Leyton, with a Q&A with talented curator, printmaker and artist Laura Villares House (some of you may have met her on the Art Trail and did her printing workshop, this is a separate exhibition she's curated of more than 40 artists!). It’s a perfect half day out for art lovers and nature fans alike and a unique opportunity to connect, chat, and enjoy some amazing creativity up close!

Message me (Sue) if you're interested. Sliding scale of tickets from £15-£35. Cash or tap on the day but please let me know to reserve you a place. Eventbrite booking link also coming soon with more details for you to share, but just giving you the heads up. It's going to be special - so hope to see you on one of the dates!’

Saturday 12th July, 10.30am-1pm, Victoria Park, Hackney - Nourish the Wild aka our lovely earth-loving friends Claire and Than are bringing their next Radicle Plant Walk to east London for an exploration of the plants of Victoria Park. Join together to share stories of and celebrate the plants that call the park home, followed by time with a foraged herbal tea. Details and booking here

Saturday 18th + Sunday 19th July 2026, 09:30AM- 4:30PM: Right to Grow Community Organiser Training Weekend at OrganicLea, Chingford - Right to Grow Waltham Forest is trying to build something big in our borough! Can you join us?

Following the election of a green council, an upswell of interest from new growers, and the great success of our previous trainings, we are coming together again to share the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to organise your neighbours and start new community gardens. Sessions will include:

Intro to the RTG: our history, aims, and demands for WF council
Visions for the Borough: dreams, culture, and justice in food growing
Starting a Garden: practical steps for setting up a community garden from scratch
Sharing Resources: sourcing and sharing supplies and funds
Key Organiser Skills: facilitating, phone banking, and leafletting in your neighbourhood
Hackathon: putting learning into practice with an example piece of land

Run by the RTG crew with input from alums of previous trainings, this will be an interactive and immersive weekend. You will leave as part of a new cohort of Right To Grow organisers ready to transform our food system and relationship to land. If you have any questions, please email info@wfrtg.co.uk

There are 25 places, with tiered tickets from £0-£25. A vegan lunch will be included each day.
To read more about the event and to get your ticket, visit: https://www.outsavvy.com/event/35606/waltham-forest-right-to-grow-training-weekend

Saturday 18 July, 1pm-10.30pm + Sunday 19 July, 1pm-6pm at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL - KONTEKST Film Festival 2026: ENTANGLEMENTS - exploring multispecies encounters and relationships: the messy, intimate, political, and often overlooked connections between humans and the more-than-human world. Presenting work by emerging practitioners across ethnographic film, experimental moving image, installation, and live performance. Rasheeqa of Hedge Herbs/Community Apothecary will offer a sensory experiential herbal tea tasting hour on the Sunday, 1-2pm. Full programme here, sounds juicy 🕸️

Saturday 25th July, 11am-12.30pm, Barnes Common Community Growing Project, as part of their Shared Roots summer programme of walks, talks & workshops: Herbalist Walk: The Healing Herbs of our Land, with Rasheeqa of Hedge Herbs & Community Apothecary, meeting the seasonal plant friends of the site and tuning into their powers, sharing a fresh infusion together.

29th July-2nd August: Summer Tree School - Skills for life in a changing world at the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve - ‘join us for a unique 5-day summer holiday club for children aged 8–11 at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve this August. Through fun, hands-on activities, each day children will connect with the natural world through a mix of activities exploring climate change, creativity, herbalism, tree identification, habitat building and mindfulness. Dates can be booked individually or as multiples. Along the way, they'll develop practical skills, confidence and a deeper understanding of nature in the city. A toolkit for life in a changing world.’

The herbalism part of the course will be led by Odhran of the Community Apothecary team.

Some news & a callout for support

Waltham Forest Food Growers Network have started a podcast, Under the Concrete! They are travelling around the borough recording the stories of magical green spaces of Waltham Forest and the growers that tend to them. First episode here

A crowdfunder from our local friend Sonali asking support towards an educational fund for Adam from Gaza, so that he can attend the Medical Foundation degree he's been awarded a place on in London, from September.