The Garden Museum Harvest Festival is a day of stalls, talks and workshops exploring the role that food and growing plays in the modern world.
From the soil beneath our feet to the people around our table, from cultural traditions to childhood memories, food helps connect us to nature, community, the seasons, and to ourselves. This year, in collaboration with felloe, the Harvest Festival is curated around the theme of ‘Common Ground’ — a celebration of the many meaningful ways food connects us.
Paid Cooking demos
Join us round the kitchen counter in our Learning Studio Kitchen for live interactive cooking demos including e5 Bakehouse milling heritage wheat and making sourdough crackers from the fresh flour, and a live biangbiang noodle-pulling demo with the star of Netflix’s Chef’s Table, Guirong Wei.
Workshop: Farm-to-table sourdough crackers
Join the E5 Bakehouse team for a hands-on milling workshop. Using heritage wheats grown on their Organically certified farm, you’ll mill fresh flour on a tabletop mills, then turn it into delicious seeded sourdough crackers to taste on the spot and take home.
11am-12pm, 12.15pm-1.15pm
£25 includes Harvest Festival entry: book tickets
Workshop: Hand-pulled noodles with Netflix star Guirong Wei
Join the star of Netflix’s Chef’s Table, Guirong Wei, as she teaches us how to make hand-pulled biangbiang noodles while hearing more about the culture of Xi’an that inspires her cuisine at her award-winning restaurants – Xi’An Impression, Master Wei Xi’an, and Dream Xi’an.
2pm-4pm, 3.15pm-4.15pm
£25 includes Harvest Festival entry: book tickets
Free Talks, Workshops & Screenings
Gatherings and talks in our Clore Learning Space will look at our shared food rituals of different religious faiths, and how top growers help restaurants design menus rooted in the rhythms of growing, and how we might rekindle reciprocity with the land through our relationship with trees.
The free talks below are included with your Harvest Festival ticket but we kindly ask that you book a space.
Kitchen Gardens
What we choose to eat often begins with what the earth gives us. In this conversation, growers and suppliers to some of the UK’s most celebrated restaurants share how the rhythms of farming shape the menus we see on our plates.
11am-11.45am: book tickets
Indoor Growing Microgreens Workshop with Hackney Herbal
No garden? No problem! Join Nat from Hackney Herbal for a workshop on indoor growing. You will learn the basics of growing microgreens and get to sow a tray to take home.
11am-1pm: book tickets
Fruity Walks
Urban fruit tree forager Divya Hariramani Herrero, will be taking small groups on a journey around Lambeth to showcase the urban fruit trees you might have missed and the stories behind how they arrived and the people who planted them.
11.30am-12.15pm, 2pm-2.45pm: book tickets
The Pine Hunters x From Trees: a New Approach to Regenerating Britain’s Forests
Through the screening of The Pine Hunters—a moving portrait of Scotland’s dwindling wild pines—paired with native tree teas and stories of agroforestry, we’ll reflect on how food, film, and landscape can help us reimagine our connection to woodland and the land we share.
12pm-12.50pm: book tickets
‘Common Ground’ on Screen: short films followed by a Q&A with the directors
A screening of two short films, The Last English Poacher and Before the Bees are Awake which each offer a unique perspective on Common Ground, followed by a Q&A with the directors.
1pm-1.50pm: book tickets
The Three Sisters and Me: Growing Your Own Plant Family
Three Sisters is an Indigenous American planting technique where squash, beans and maize (corn) are planted together to provide each plant the support that it needs to grow. Using plants to think about family structures, this workshop will weave tales in agriculture, kinship, history, and creation. Participants will celebrate regenerative ways of caring for the land and for our families.
1.30pm-3.30pm: book tickets
Breaking Bread: In Conversation with Ben and Ben on food, faith and community
2pm-2.45pm
Join us for a conversation on food, faith, and community with Ben, rector at St George the Martyr in Borough, and Ben, co-manager of the London Buddhist Center’s Mandala Café.
Book tickets
Free Drop-In Workshops, Seed Swap & Performance
London Vegetable Orchestra
Enjoy live music from the London Vegetable Orchestra—an extraordinary ensemble whose hand-crafted courgette percussion, carrot recorders, and pumpkin basses sound as good as they look. At the festival they’ll not only perform, but also invite you to join their hands-on “Make Your Own Veggie Instrument” workshop.
This special event is made possible in partnership with EuroHarvest, the premium greengrocer bringing the very best of Italy’s produce to London’s table.
Interactive Exhibit on Community & Drought
A display on the way communities around the world have worked together to handle water scarcity, and how that might affect all of our lives soon too. Run by Nathalie – a doctoral researcher at the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships Centre for Water Cultures at the University of Hull.
Live Seed Swap, hosted by Incredible Edible
Bring your spare seeds, swap stories, and take home something new to grow at our Seed Swap, hosted by Incredible Edible Lambeth. Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just starting out, this is a chance to share knowledge, discover unusual varieties, and connect with others who care about food and community. No seeds? No problem—come along anyway and leave inspired to start planting.
Stalls
Producers, growers and makers setting up stalls in the Nave will include:
