Designing Edible Cities: Exploring the Origins and Future of Urban Foraging and Wild Herbalism in the United Kingdom

Foraging and wild herbalism are important elements of the edible green infrastructure which could, by design, enhance the urban framework of the edible city. Despite recent attention to urban agriculture, landscape architecture has rarely focused on aspects of urban foraging and how to design sustainable urban green infrastructure for foragers. A brief review of current literature precedes a historical context comparison with particular reference to the presence of physic gardens in towns and cities across the UK and Europe and hedgerow herbalism. The study examines three urban foraging case studies in England. Direct participant observations of three foraging groups in cities in Southern England enabled rich data collection and help to inform our recommendations for designing foraging-rich urban landscapes. Whilst provisioning is at the heart of urban foraging, the research revealed insights into the relevance and importance of foraging at the individual, group and community levels. At the individual level, urban foraging presents an opportunity for individuals not only to connect more deeply with nature in their local urban environment but also to increase social interactions. Guided groups enable knowledge transmission and collective learning between experts and participants. Groups facilitate the cross-disciplinary sharing of knowledge and information on a range of allied activities including methods and recipes for culinary recipes and remedy preparations. The research collates information gathered at the three urban locations. This data is compared and contrasted and used to inform urban foraging design recommendations, which are anchored in a place-specific historical context.