We met on what was a welcoming warm and sunny day after a week of rain and grey skies - perfect for being outside! I was struck by how shady and damp the garden was compared to the rest of the sun, 10am starts with the plot still highly cast in shadow before the sun would move to brighten everything up.
Given the dampness it was interesting to note how quickly the wood chip mulch seemed to be decaying - it was now nearly 2 months since we first introduced it, and it was working well to keep a wanderable path, whilst also breaking down over time to release nutrients into the soil.
We started out with some small rubbish collection, which seems to be becoming our tradition. Cans, plastic, a light bulb even. Next we moved onto breaking up a couple of fallen branches that had come down after some heavy wind a few nights earlier. Smaller pieces were placed into our takkenrillen, to slowly break down whilst providing shelter for others, and larger pieces were placed into a pile we had made for branches/sticks we could repurpose for upcoming building/structural works. We also noticed that a decent pile of cut up ivy leaves had been brought into the back corner of the garden by someone mysteriously - it seemed odd in ways but also very welcome! The ivy was nicely shredded into smaller bits and was already quickly breaking down, so would compost away alongside our mulch. We decided to spread it out with a rake to mix it up with the mulch already there. So thanks neighbour who brought their unwanted ivy to us :) In the last of our "heavier duty" work, we decided to pay some attention to the path leading into the garden closest to Schilperoortstraat - it had also become quite overgrown by black nightshade, so we decided to trim some of them back to make the path a bit more open, and to also allow some other species to establish. We decided to bring in some of the longer thicker branches to make a small line between the path and where the plants were growing, in a way to softly define the path.
We also encountered quite some poop in the garden - we hope it was from dogs... but it was a bit unsure. To be honest it is a perfect spot for this to happen, it's quiet, hidden away... so you can do your business in secret without anyone interrupting you! We decided it best to strategically scoop it up on a bed of mulch with a shovel and flick it underneath more dense growing plants - so no one would accidentally step in it, especially children! And also so the poop would also decay into the soils there. Our only question was about what the poop maybe contained, if it had medicines in it, or potentially harmful properties perhaps not so great to bring into the ground, but firstly we are not planning to necessarily harvest or eat from the plants grown there, likely the lead content is already too high to do so, so it is already "contaminated" and "interrupted" soils, perhaps this poop is also just a reflection of the surrounding environment, so why not work with it rather than against it?
But back on trackkkk - after a coffee and turkish delight break we moved into a more observational mode. I wanted us to spend some more time this session to witness the species of the garden, and more keenly focus on the inspects that are currently living in the space. We moved from one end of the garden to the other, and made notes of each type of insect we encountered along the way. We noticed happily too that there were a lot of wood lice, snails, slugs and spiders (even making webs in!) making themselves at home in the takkenrillen that we had been making along the different fences of the garden!! It was really nice to see these structures being used by them, alongside enabling us a way of composting garden matter :)
We noticed..... wood lice, spiders (two types) (and lots of their webs!), small flies, big flies, lady birds, snails, slugs, earwig, caterpillars :) it was difficult to photograph them all, but we tried! I also downloaded an app to help us to work out what kind of species they were, so we could learn a bit more about them - I tried to use it in regards to the big spiders that have recently been chilling in the garden, and two options seemed to come up, so I think I need to do a bit more investigating... It was fun to spend time in this way, I think we were all surprised by how many insects we found hanging out.
We finished as always with a nice lunch - this time a balsamic beetroot pastry as highlight :)
Here are some photos taken by me, Kate, and Tiago Santos
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thanks ivy mulch - wherever you came from!
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cutting the fallen branches up into smaller bits
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sorry nightshade, just trimming you back a little bit
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the path is now walkable :)
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looking looking looking!
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earwig :)
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spider :)
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we noticed that this small Sycamore Acer had some kind of disease - my plant app suggested it might be 'gall' but I need to look into this further as the photos of gall looked quite different to this...
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a beautiful stick that Tiago found <3
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| LUNCH! |
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| RUBBISH! |
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