We spoke with Sal Chebbah, founder of the Grow Urban Festival (7–15 June), who shared the story behind this week-long celebration of urban nature, community resilience, and creative regeneration.
How did the idea for the Grow Urban Festival come about?
During lockdown, I was growing mushrooms at Somerset House as part of a circular economy and upskilling project. It was fascinating but also isolating. I craved connection — with others doing similar work and with the wider public who didn’t even know these projects existed.
Through my sponsor CiVa, we mapped other urban growing projects across London and reached out — not to add more work, but to offer space to connect, share, and exchange support. We realised most residents had no idea what was happening around them. These small, grassroots, often underfunded initiatives needed visibility and celebration.
So we thought: what if we created an annual gathering? Something joyful, practical, and public — to spotlight what’s already growing and help these efforts unite, attract investment, and gain recognition.
Thanks to years of relationship-building — and proving I can deliver what I dream — I’ve brought together incredible partners like the National Trust, Imperial College, the Natural History Museum, Natural Park City, and many more to help shape something I truly believe in.
What inspired you to launch it, and what’s your personal connection to the themes it explores?
The Grow Urban Festival was born from my personal journey as a grower, educator, and connector — someone who deeply believes in the quiet power of soil, mushrooms, and community.
It’s about reclaiming joy, land, and possibility — especially for communities historically excluded from those conversations. It’s also about creating space to feel again, together. Or at least sharing those possibilities to plant the seed or spore in our minds.
I am not a farmer, scientist, or gardener — I retrained and continue to learn. This is a lesson about writing new chapters in our lives, while being in service to others and the planet.
My heart is all in. Grow Urban is a love letter to the city, to community growers, to the mycelial power of collaboration — and to the future we can still grow together.
For those who are new to it, what is the Grow Urban Festival all about?
Grow Urban Festival is London’s green celebration of nature, creativity, and community in the city. It’s a week-long series of workshops, talks, walks, feasts, and artistic experiences that invite people to reconnect with plants, soil, food, and each other. The festival shines a spotlight on the individuals, grassroots collectives, charities, and institutions working to transform the city into a more sustainable, edible, and regenerative place to live.
We explore everything from mushroom cultivation to climate literacy, from herbalism to school garden networks, from composting to design for wellbeing. It’s radically accessible, intergenerational, and grounded in love — for land, for learning, and for collective futures.
What can people expect this year in terms of events, themes, and experiences?
This year, we have over 40 events across London — in gardens, libraries, galleries, schools, and kitchens. There will be mushroom supper clubs, children’s nature walks, soil seminars, compost demos, school gardener gatherings, healing spaces, climate talks, and even a few surprises.
Our themes orbit around regeneration, community resilience, urban food systems, and the power of ancestral knowledge — all through hands-on experiences that are as nourishing as they are transformative.
Why do you think this festival — and its message — is especially important right now for Londoners?
Because so many of us feel disconnected, overwhelmed, and tired. London is beautiful and vibrant, but also fractured — socially, environmentally, spiritually.
The festival offers a gentle way to reconnect, to remember that change can be joyful, collective, and deeply rooted in place.
It invites us to be part of a city that grows not just upward, but inward and outward — toward each other and toward the Earth.
How does it respond to the current environmental, social, and urban challenges the city faces?
By making solutions feel local, doable, and human again. From food insecurity to green space access, from climate anxiety to isolation — these challenges aren’t abstract.
We respond by offering tools, workshops, relationships, and joy.
We turn rooftops, schoolyards, and unloved spaces into places of possibility.
We centre those often left out of environmental conversations and create spaces where everyone can learn, contribute, and belong.
The festival clearly goes beyond sustainability. How do topics like wellbeing, urban design, food systems, community resilience, or practical skills shape the programme?
Completely. For me, sustainability is the baseline — the invitation is to go deeper into regeneration. That includes inner wellbeing, urban healing, interdependence, and cultural repair.
We’re not just trying to grow food — we’re growing dignity, memory, and skill.
We offer workshops on herbalism and soil science, but also on storytelling, grief, and beauty.
The aim is to build resilience not just against crisis, but towards aliveness.
How can Londoners get involved — whether they’re curious first-timers or already active in this space?
There’s something for everyone. Whether you want to learn how to grow mushrooms in a bucket, bring your kids pond-dipping, attend a panel on edible cities, or just sit in a garden and listen — you’re welcome.
Each participant in the festival has their own website and programming open for all to join.
People can visit growurban.london for the full programme. Many events are free or pay-what-you-can.
You can also follow us on Instagram at @growurbanfestival.london and join, attend, or sponsor the movement.
Looking ahead, what’s your long-term vision for Grow Urban?
I’d love to see the festival become an ongoing platform — a living network.
A quiet, radical movement that helps shape policy, urban design, school curricula, and food systems in London.
A place where artists, scientists, healers, growers, and dreamers collaborate.
Where mushrooms, children, elders, and ideas can all flourish side by side.
My dream is that one day London becomes the blueprint for other cities, rooted in the needs and gifts of its people.
It requires connection and investment — the missing link.
Do you have a message you’d like to share with fellow Green Londoners?
Yes: Don’t wait to be invited into nature — you already belong there.
This city needs your hands, your voice, your love.
Whether you grow, write, build, heal, organise, or simply show up with open eyes — you are part of this living system.
Let’s grow something beautiful together.
