Newsletter
Samhain 2025
Dear readers,
We can feel the days getting shorter now, so we are preparing our gardens for a winter sleep, preserving our harvests and saving seeds for next year. The time of Samhain has arrived. In our exploration of the ‘Wheel of the Year’, this signifies the ending and beginning of the pagan year on 31 October and 1 November. Each ending is the beginning of something else; one door closing opens another. We might already feel the space that will be created by finishing something, big or small!
At this time of year, it is said that the veil between the spirit world and ours is thin. Widely celebrated around the world with various festivities, we can see parallels in Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), Diwali, and Hallowe’en (All Hallows Eve). By honouring our ancestors and loved ones we feel closer to them, and at the same time we create space for letting go bit by bit and accepting where life takes us.
Colours for our Samhain altar are generously supplied by nature: the reds, oranges and browns of apples, pumpkins, and foraged hawthorn berries for example. These berries, from the bush that gives us both physical and emotional medicine for our hearts, provide a ravishing red for your altar or can be made into an elixer or tincture.* Rosehips, chestnuts and acorns add more colours and sweet flavours. Spending time in nature is always a good way to ground and connect to Earth and Soul, as is spending time doing activities which nourish you; be it a spa day, swimming in open water, a dinner with friends (try the fluffy pumpkin cake recipe in this newsletter), making a fire, or reading a book. Recognising and showing your appreciation and love makes this time better for all!
We hope you spend this Samhain in good health and by feeling love for and by yourself and others. Many blessings from the whole Cityplot team!
*Before you forage and make medicine, please educate yourself well and consult your health professional. A wonderful introduction into herbology and urban witchcraft is the new book by our Amsterdam friend Lynn Shore; The Green City Witch. Congratulations Lynn!
Amsterdam Area
Get Down, Get Dirty 2025 graduates: Congrats!
Our Get Down, Get Dirty course is growing into a PDC!
Curious about our newly-hatched 72-hour permaculture course with modules on food growing, natural building, food forest systems, social permaculture and design & project development in an urban environment?
All the information on our first urban PDC course (Permaculture Design Certificate) in combination with our trusty and hallowed Get Down, Get Dirty urban food growing session is now online!
Check our website for the details on the team of expert teachers, content, dates and practicalities. Do you have questions or are you ready to register? Email us at: workshopsams@cityplot.org.
Texelhof community garden transformation; from spring to autumn
Free Climate Week workshop in Haarlem
After moving from Amsterdam to Haarlem nearly two years ago, Cityplotter and Permaculture designer Sylvia Avontuur wanted to connect with her new home town. What better way than working on greening the city? This year, she took the opportunity to design the Texelhof community garden in Schalkwijk – a space for connection in the neighbourhood. From spring onwards, residents transformed the 450m² plot into a thriving community garden with a food forest and vegetable beds. Now appointed Climate Mayor of Haarlem, Sylvia continues her mission: making green spaces accessible to everyone.
During Climate Week, she's hosting a free hands-on workshop "Winterklaar maken" at Texelhof community garden on Tuesday 11 November from 11:00-13:00. Learn how to prepare a garden for winter in a climate-friendly way and get practical tips on starting a community garden in your own neighbourhood.
Let us know you if are coming: email sylvia@cityplot.org
Can't attend? Check our seasonal gardening tips down below!
Harvesting joy, and planting garlic!
We had a wonderful harvest party at the end of October at the Stadsboerderij Osdorp. We started off by harvesting a lot of compost from our Afval naar Oogst community composting project, spreading it on an empty bed, and planting six different varieties of garlic! We like the “hard neck” type that will make a “scape” in June next year, about a month before the harvest. The scapes are actually the flowers of the garlic on long stems. They look like serpents, and they make an amazing pesto!
We also made smudge sticks from our incredibly robust rosemary plants in the herb garden, and pickled a lot of Jerusalem artichoke that we will serve when the garden teams have their community dinner on November 5th. Want to join us for a delicious garden feast featuring our pumpkin harvest at the Buurtkeuken? Sign up here!
We are grateful not only for the bountiful harvest that our garden provided this year, but also for the fun and hardworking volunteers that make this happen. If you’d like to join our team in the production garden, the herb garden or compost area please send a mail to ann@cityplot.org.
SWEDEN
Mushroom season in Sweden
Growing your own food is wonderful and you can always supplement your garden harvest with seasonal wild foods. It's been a good long mushroom season this year in Sweden. From August to November many here forage in the woods for all kinds of edible mushrooms. Get hold of a pocket-sized mushroom guidebook to take along to help with identifying the good ones. If you have the slightest doubt, leave them alone! The best guide of course, is an experienced human who will let you tag along.
Berlin
Expressions of gratitude
Cityplot Berlin Workdays at Wald&Wild
As the Berlin/Brandenburg Cityplot Workdays at Wald&Wild draw to a close for 2025, there is cause to reach out to those who join us - and those who cheer from the sidelines - giving their time, energy, and sometimes some serious muscle work to a project at the centre of our hearts.
These last few weeks have seen the planting of 57 new trees and bushes. Just when we think there is space for no more, it seems there is! The delivery arrived during our Autumn Project Week and once again many people stayed overnight in our sizable glamping tent. Whereas the Summer Project Week ensured working at the early and late ends of the day to stay out of the heat, this time we instead worked hard to keep and stay warm and do what was needed within daylight hours. Enthusiastic digging (on an otherwise no-dig site) was taken on by one of the latest additions to the team - a wiry-haired, white Jack Russell dog named Arnie. He melts our hearts and keeps our ball throwing arms well trained!
This year has been a year of community, of love for each other and our precious Earth, of exchange; plant food care, harvesting, preparation and sharing the harvest together. People of all ages and walks of life come together in a safe space to learn, listen, laugh, cry and appreciate the multitude of forms of life with which we interact - and who interact with us. For us, this is the true meaning and practice of Permaculture.
With our deepest gratitude, we thank all of you involved in this project, Wald&Wild thrives because of you - we thrive because of you. Each and every one of you - in 2025 and in the many years before - bring your own special talents and spirit to our Permaculture Farm, and we see it therefore as thus: our Permaculture Farm. It is in this ethos of giving in which we all receive beyond measure.
May the Winter rest your muscles and soul, may the warmth of our interactions be sparkles in this coming, slower, darker season, and may you feel the affectionate hug of the Earth as she thanks you herself!
Information and sign-ups for 2026:
https://www.cityplot.org/workshops-berlin/permaculture-workdays-2026
FROM OUR GARDENERS
Words from Lenara: A workdays bona fide
Lenara joined the Cityplot Berlin GDGD workshops at least a decade ago, and has been an amazingly active participant ever since! Although she has acquired her own sizable garden site (Schrebergarten) she rarely misses a workday. Her friendship, stories and insights are very dear to us - and we thank her for writing this piece about her own experiences:
"The amount of experiential knowledge I get during the workday practices is large and extremely valuable in my view. I feel much more like I'm learning than just 'working'. Leonie explains the activities and the reasoning behind all the particular choices in a way tailored for the group, offering loads of useful information for both people who are there having their first experiences with permaculture, and those who have been working and volunteering already for a long time in different corners of the world. I met many amazing people and made great friends. Wald&Wild is one of my favorite places. Thanks for opening your doors and sharing your wisdom with us."
From top right: A sunset over the rice fields behind our family home; The youngest freshest kale leaves, totally gobbled; Chestnut bolete, ready to be dried; Sweet chestnuts, roasted.
Attuning to autumn - three sharings for Samhain from Kalliope
Hungry birds, autumn feasts
I recently shared a few words about and pictures of our balcony garden. Lately some hungry pigeons have been seriously active, and pretty much all our autumn-winter kale and Chinese cabbage has been munched and crunched. We considered netting, but half-decided without deciding that everyone deserves a feast occasionally. It’s a little tragic to see the skeletal remains of once lush Redbor and Dinosaur kale, but I will cut them back and put the beds to sleep soon.
Foraging, autumn gifts
I feel blessed that my ambitious and for many years career-oriented boyfriend has finally slowed down enough to enjoy attuning to the seasons. This autumn, Paul led our gathering of dozens and dozens of fallen apples and sweet chestnuts from a small, unused/abandoned orchard near his parent’s home in Ravenswoud, Friesland. Porcini and Chestnut Bolete were other autumn treasures we foraged. With the apples, we dried cinnamon coated slices, made a kilo of apple sauce, and a first attempt at home made apple cider vinegar. I’ve hardly ever seen Paul so happy in the kitchen!
Loss, attuning to autumn
I lost my father eight weeks ago, and four weeks ago I celebrated the beginning of my first journey around the sun without him. As autumn dawns and leaves twirl, branches hang bare and the days darken, I’m carrying deep loss and grief. Recently, I learnt from a friend and teacher that in the Andean wisdom-traditions of the Quechua peoples, the past is spoken of as in-front of us – everything we can see, everything that has made life so far – while the future is behind us, unknown and unseen. This beautiful piece of wisdom helps me move backward into life without my father, without knowing what it will bring. Before me, in front of me, our life together and everything that has been is bright, wide, and forever giving. There’s no leaving it behind. And with autumn’s permission, I too will try to let my leaves fall, rest in silence and essence, slowly growing the resilience to burst into bud when the time is right.
SEASONAL GARDENING TIPS
Autumn and winter gardening tips
Put your beds, boxes or pots to sleep by mulching them with freshly fallen leaves to protect and feed the soil over the winter months.
Gather dry leaves to make a leaf compost in a compost box or in closed garbage bags that you perforate and keep in a dry place. The end result, combined with composted soil and sand, makes wonderful potting soil in spring!
Leave dried up flowers and upright stems in the garden! The seeds will feed birds and critters, and many insects find an overwintering spot in hollow stems. This way you will have those trusty ladybirds early on in your garden to help with the aphids.
Get your garlic in the ground if you haven't already! Our garlic planting video starring Suzanne & Eva is here.
And remember to plant all the spring flowering bulbs in the onion family this year. It's not too late for tulips and daffodils either. Please buy only organic bulbs for the well-being of all creatures.
If you have a greenhouse or protected space you can sow salads to harvest in early spring: lettuces, mustard greens and pea shoots.
Recipe
Pumpkin harvest at Stadsboerderij Osdorp
Pumpkin cake and gratefulness by Zoë
It is that time of the season when we start to huddle under a blankets and our bodies crave warmth, stews, and spices. While the last newsletter revealed a savoury pumpkin chutney, this time it’ll take you to the sweet world of a fluffy pumpkin cake – perfect with a hot cup of tea on a rainy day.
Why did I choose another recipe with pumpkin? Because I deeply admire its significance in the Indigenous cultures of the American continent, and I wanted to take a moment of appreciation. In many Indigenous cultures, pumpkins are deeply tied to rituals of the harvest season, representing a moment to thank the earth for its generosity.
"For many Indigenous tribes, pumpkins and other crops grown in harmony with the Earth held spiritual significance. The planting, cultivating, and harvesting of pumpkins were part of seasonal cycles that connected people to the land and to each other. These practices fostered a sense of gratitude and reverence for the earth’s gifts, and many harvest celebrations honoured pumpkins as part of this gratitude. Different tribes had specific ceremonies and rituals tied to the harvest season, many of which featured pumpkins as symbols of abundance, sustenance, and survival. For Indigenous cultures, pumpkins weren’t just a food source but a representation of the earth’s generosity and a reminder of their responsibility to care for the land in return."
This passage was copied from this website, where you can read more about the connection between pumpkins and Indigenous People.
Of course, as a chef, I also love pumpkin for its taste and the infinite possibilities in combining it in sweet and savoury dishes. And at the same time, I consider myself very, very lucky to be able to cook with such beautiful vegetables and fruits, and I don’t ever want to take it for granted.
Happy Samhain, happy baking!
Fluffy Pumpkin Cake (gluten free)
Ingredients
180 gr. pumpkin purée (first you roast the pumpkin in the oven, then you blend it into a purée)
95 gr. butter
3 packets of vanilla sugar
75 gr. sugar
80 gr. yoghurt
2 eggs
180 gr. (gluten-free) self-raising flour
a piece of ginger, peeled and minced
a good pinch of cinnamon
a pinch of nutmeg
a pinch of salt and pepper
zest of half a lemon
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and prepare your baking dish with baking paper or butter/flour
Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and beat the egg whites
In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together and make a hollow in the middle
Put the egg yolks, yoghurt, and butter in the hollow and beat with a hand mixer until well combined
Fold in the egg whites until just combined
Pour the dough into your baking dish and bake for around 20 minutes or until nothing sticks to your fork anymore
You can serve it with a bit of Greek yoghurt and the zest of the other half of the lemon
Amsterdam autumn colours by Eva
Produced by:
Eva Thomassen, Cityplot Amsterdam