The Planting Festival @ Woodford Review

Woodford’s The Planting Festival recalls the glory of its famous New Year camping extravaganza, but on a much more intimate scale.

The name The Planting takes its roots from literally that – planting trees to replenish the Woodfordia forest. But it is now so much more than that... It has really branched out (okay, enough tree puns now). With a host of writer’s talks, environmental presentations, music and food, the festival nourishes the mind as well as the tummy.

Image © Luisa Ryan

Taking place over three days, headlining speakers included authors Helen Razer, Michael Leunig and Richard Fidler talking about their recent books. But it also embraced academics talking about their research, female beer brewers talking about their start up social enterprise project, bee keeping, frog conservation, soil science and much, much more. There are also food presentations and group meals with Matt Golinski’s Wild Dinner of native and foraged foods being a particular festival favourite.

The musical acts were hard to beat too. Although some audience members may not have heard of them before hand, there was a group for most tastes, and more importantly, to get your body moving as the evenings grew cold. Revellers were boogying to the wee hours of the morning with folk groups from around the world.

Image © Luisa Ryan

But The Planting isn’t just for adults. There is a whole kids festival to keep the small people in your family busy. They have kids craft workshops, a massive sand pit, arts corner, music, presentations and everything else you can think of to keep their hands both dirty and busy.

This tiny festival has so much to offer, and its size is part of its appeal. Of all the events the programme boasts, one volunteer said that the magic was more in the discovery. She recommended finding the festival’s bamboo tree house, and lying down in it after dark to watch the stars.

Image © Luisa Ryan

The festival was full of little nooks and crannies that could so easily be missed on the first circumnavigation of the site – a walk that takes about three minutes. For this reason as well as the stellar programme, The Planting is well worth taking the whole three days to explore, dance, learn and feast with friends and family.