After a week of long..grey...cold…rainy days we were blessed with a dry! and bright! time when we met on Sunday morning - seemed like it was meant to be!
Having scrapped our planning the previous session we wanted to morph the day into some small caring tasks, coupled with a ‘crafting’ moment to form a sign for the garden, and possibly build or incorporate the gleaned materials we had been gathering from the grounds over the last months.
We started off in general mode - making time for coffee, biscuits and a catch up before gradually mingling into the garden to begin our trash collecting. We reflected that there had been a slowing down of litter coming in, less plastic, bottles, packaging, perhaps we were getting somewhere, or maybe this was now setting a ‘standard’ in the park, less lingering litter encouraging less dropping of new additions? It also meant that our focus could move from the big things to the small, honing in on cigarette butts for example, of which there were many. Hannah and John brought their claw grabbers along which made this task for minuscule grotty pick up easier :)
It seemed as though no one was sleeping in the garden anymore either, though we found a big shopping bag left behind by someone but there was barely any contents contained within it - let’s see, maybe someone will linger back soon.
The pile of wood chip mulch from the willow was still sitting around so this became the next job - we began by loading up the wheelbarrow and were surprised with how many we could fill from this seemingly small pile. We wanted to spread a portion of it over the garden paths, to incorporate the willows decay into the garden, and then the remainder to move to a more convenient spot along the wall of the grounds - currently it was in the middle of the park, and we promised the gemeente workers we would move it as otherwise they can get in trouble if there are complaints, so we wanted to keep our side of the bargain :)
The pile by this point had stood for little over two weeks and we were amazed by the warmth and mould that had already managed to infest it. We were reminded of the wood chip compost heater that Voedseltuin installed at their garden - coils of pipe moving water through such a heap, though on an enormous scale, that was then pumped into the walls of their communal house to heat it over winter. The heat quickly demonstrates how ‘alive’ the environment of the pulverised willow is - harbouring bacteria, fungi, insects, that were intermingling and fermenting the pile, chemical reactions and transferals of minerals/resources abounding. The current wet weather was also doing its bit, keeping the pile moist and lubricated. Kate recalled how mulch was often left to ‘cure’ for some months before it was introduced to new locations to be spread, generally to enable time for these processes to decay and slow down, similar to composting, so as also not to burn or cook plants that would be exposed to the heat from the pile. We decided then to spread a small layer of the mulch upon part of the paths, to reduce the risk of this ‘cooking’, and indeed to heap the remainder up, to let it continue to ferment over time, at its own pace.
Guillem was interested in researching if the mould present in the mulch would be an issue to introduce into the garden, incase it might make some of the species sick through transferal, though through his researches decided that the mould was also just a part of the environment, and as we were not making vast mulch layers, this should be okay to move in and amongst the biome.
On our list of things to do was to make a sign for Shared Grounds. It was something we had been wanting to make for a while, and as the weather was beginning to change and we were entering more a hibernation phase, it seemed like the right moment to look over the materials we had gleaned from the area. To make a sign also felt important as a way to communicate the garden in a subtle way to the neighbourhood. Kate brought some scrap wood she had from the studio, we had string and a hand drill, some extra tools. Silvia was very keen to use a dremmel to engrave into the plate, and we were curious to see how this might encourage a community of moss and mould to grow once outside in the damp. Hannah and John worked on the found objects, drilling some holes and combining them into a long form, feeding each into the other as a kind of braid.
After our lunch we set about installing the sign - attaching it to a large branch we had incorporated into the fence at the beginning of the garden. We also installed Hannah’s braid in the garden, interested to see how it might be shifted or changed by those coming into the landscape.
Photos by Silvia Arenas and Kate :)
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