Spring Urban Foraging in Landschaftspark Herzberge: Luscious Leaves & First Flowers

It's official: Spring is finally here, and foraging season is upon us again!! March marks a special time of year: a time of coming out of hibernation, of returning life, color, and flavor. The sap is flowing, the buds are bursting, and the Berlin air is full of the smell of wild onion… let's get out into it!

Join Simka (they/them) for a spring wander through Landschaftspark Herzberge, where we will get acquainted with a delicious range of common, beginner-friendly herbs and flowers abundant in Berlin in the early spring – no experience necessary.

This park is a hidden treasure of Berlin. With wildflower meadows, grazing sheep, fruit trees and tangled forest, it provides an idyllic landscape for a spring wander, and excellent clean areas to forage.

We'll make use of the park's abundant areas of sorrel, nettles, hops, cleavers, ground elder, miner's lettuce and loads more to discover the wealth of tender spring greens and delicate flowers. Here you will learn which plants explode with flavor in sauces and pestos, such as earthy nettles and fiery garlic mustard – and which ones will skyrocket your spring salads, such as tender hops shoots and gingery magnolia blossoms. 

These first plants of the year are powerhouses of nutrition in the spring, packed with all the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that support the immune system, decrease inflammation, support detoxification and increase circulation to help our bodies move out of sluggish winter mode. Plus, they taste incredible!

Together we'll explore the urban greenery and learn the basics of how to find, identify, harvest, and prepare the wild and urban plants that are currently in season. 

In this tour, we'll also encounter a delicious secret plant rarely found in Berlin, which will help us learn about regional foraging practices, sustainable harvesting, and urban multispecies living. (Can you guess which plant this is??)

With a big focus on keeping yourself – and the land and its other inhabitants  – safe while foraging, you'll discover how to get confident enough to bring your own harvest home, and come away with loads of ideas for how to prepare your finds.

After our tour through the park, we'll apply our learning by making & enjoying a foraged pesto all together in the park (Simka will supply the fresh homemade bread to eat it with!).

When: Saturday March 29th, 12.00 - 16:00
Where: Landschaftspark Herzberge (~ 4km walking in total)
Cost: 45€ / 35€

Attendance is limited to 15 people, so registration is required!

Add a spring foraging guide:

Last year I created a foraging guide with an incredible illustrator, Juliette Patissier. The guide is made up of a set of 7 cards, each featuring identification pointers, harvesting tips, recipe ideas and more for delicious, common plants, many of which we'll meet during the tour. The set also includes general foraging advice and the recipe for the pesto we'll make together, plus a waterproof envelope to keep it all safe. 

The guide usually costs 15€, but if you buy one together with your ticket, you'll get a 2€ discount!

See here for more information about the guide.

A note on pricing & philosophy:

It's a deep value of mine that this learning – which radically connects us with ourselves, the land, and one another – should be accessible for everyone, which is why I'm keeping my tours as low-price as I possibly can. This spring, I'm trying out a new system to uphold this financial accessibility while keeping it sustainable for myself. 

There are now two ticket levels: Full price and Concession. Please choose the concession level only if you aren't able to afford the full price ticket. 

If the concession level is also not accessible for you, I really see you and I still want you to come foraging with me! I'll be offering a fully donation-based community tour once a month throughout the season. Please join my Telegram group or send me an email to get updates on future Community tours!

My intention with all of this is to earn a living wage while widening the reach of financial accessibility to more folks than I was able to with my previous sliding-scale model. Thanks for being with me in navigating through the challenges of capitalism with justice, honesty and compassion!

By the way: the donation field during checkout goes to Dandelion (the platform I use for ticket sales), not to me. Dandelion is fully donation-based, and is a great, ethical & independent alternative to huge companies like Eventbrite. Feel free to donate, or enter a 0 in the box to remove the donation from checkout.

Registration and cancellation:

Once you register for the workshop, you'll receive an email with all details on the exact meeting location as well as what to bring.

The event will go ahead regardless of the weather. The plants don't mind if it's wet!

If you can't make the event, you may cancel by email up to 48 hours in advance. This ensures another participant can take your place. Refunds for cancellations within 48 hours of the event are not possible. Within 48 hours, you may transfer your ticket to someone else, but please make sure to let me know by email.