Harlow Town Park Forest Garden

Harlow Town Park Forest Garden is maintained and funded by volunteers. It is an example of an edible and purposeful garden that has been designed using Forest Garden principles. It is freely accessible to anyone visiting this 164 acre public park in the centre of Harlow, Essex.

The garden began in 2019 and comprises a series of beds planted with a diverse range of edibles in combination with nitrogen fixers, dynamic accumulators and plants for pollinators. The beds are situated either side of a small valley providing different aspects and different soil type. Existing trees have offered the opportunity to create a layered system quite quickly, one example is a mature Corsican Stone Pine underplanted with Mediterranean herbs. There is a bed in full sun planted with dye plants and a Hugelkultur situated at the bottom of a slope. The volunteers run tours on request, demonstrate plant uses and examples of produce harvested from the garden. The volunteers hold regular craft fayre's to showcase the Forest Garden produce and raise funds to maintain and extend the planting in the garden.