In this seminar, Ayumi Matsuzaka will share several community examples of creating Terra Preta Soil substrate in various neighbourhoods of Berlin. Since 2015, the neighbourhood of Eden garden (Berlin-Pankow) has collected kitchen waste and have created a Terra Preta substrate together. The members order local organic foods through weekly farmer market communities (Marktschwarmerei) and bring their kitchen waste back when they pick up ordered foods at the market place. In this community composting, everybody get benefits of easy starting, easy success, economical and including everybody even those who do not have gardens and balconies in cities.

Ayumi Matusaka is passionate about the power of community and bringing people together to engender concrete changes in the way we live and consume. She explored for several years the role of humans in energy and material cycles. Having learned the art of making hygienic Terra Preta soil substrate from human bodily waste from leading soil experts, she regularly offers workshops for Berlin urban garden communities.

She holds a masters degree in Fine Arts from Bauhaus University Weimar, Germany. Further training includes Blue Economy and the Ashoka circular future program. Currently she is using her passion and experience as a founder of the social startup DYCLE which deals with compostable baby diapers. The instruction of Terra Preta composting and biochar making are open-sourced for urban gardeners and soil practitioners.

More information and instructions at www.dycle.org