The project is part of the Community Ecologies workshop: a hands-on workshop exploring the ground beneath Bethnal Green Nature Reserve and learning how to help it thrive.
One area of the nature reserve stopped receiving rainfall, when a permanent canopy was installed. The canopy gave us a shelter from rain, but the ground has become dry and dusty—combined with the pressure from long spell of no rain and heat waves, some of the surrounding elder tree canopy started to dieback.
The project explored a way of giving the water and life back to the ground in collaboration with Edward Simpson (the site manager of the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve).
To create corridors of air and water in the ground for an environment that nutures tree roots, mycelium, soil-microbes and earthworms, we have buried natural materials sourced from a network of hyper-local collaborators. The woodshavings were collected from London Green Wood, and the coffeeechaff and spent coffee grounds from La Tostadora Roastery. Other materials include: biochar from Sayitwithwood, found roof slate tiles and bricks, wool. Straw inoculated with mycelium spores, twigs/logs/leaves were collected from in and around the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve.
We have built a log drainage channel to collect rainwater run-off from the canopy, allowing water to percolate slowly through the ground and move towards the driest area at the centre of the site.
The drainage channel functions as an underground corridor for both air and water movement, filled with compostable organic matter that nourishes below-ground ecology — including mycelium, microbes, and earthworms.
Overtime, this helps regenerate a healthy living soil ecosystem, enabling tree and plant roots to access the air, moisture, and nutrients they need to thrive.
1. Hand-dug a channel with a slope towards the centre of the site.
2. Sprinkled a layer of biochar.
3. Laid a layer of decomposable blanket made of woven straw, wood shavings, wool and fallen leaves inoculated with mycelium spores mixed with slate stone pieces.
4. Buried a log (with the tree bark on) and pegged them in with timber piles.
5. Filled the remaining gaps with the decomposable blanket and biochar.
6. Topped with tree branches mixed in with small slate stone pieces, finished with a layer of woodshavings and woodchip.
Each step we take weighs down the ground below us and compacts the soil — the physical pressure a human (me, for example) exerts on the ground/cm2 is almost 9 times more than that of a typical paving stone! One common example of how our feet affect urban soil can be seen in many city park lawns. As people walk on the grass over time, the soil becomes hard and compacted, making it difficult for the ground to absorb and hold rainwater. The method of reintroducing compostable carbon rich organic materials (that are readily available and found around us) is one way to de-compact and restore permeability and life back in the soil.