A Machine for Life and a Molecule Meet on a Farm

You can see a complete and labeled map plan of the farm on our about us page.

This started as a daydream. I looked down at the farm while drinking my coffee at the systems humming automatically, robotically, and seasonally. I was amused that all of the systems were running resources into, through, and around the farm. It looked like a Chlorophyll molecule. That’s when I thought about what would happen when a machine for life and a molecule meet on a farm.

Why a Machine For Life?

I love the many innovations I have implemented across the 10 integrated ecologies that comprise Mezzacello Urban Farm. My favorite cascading innovation is the potager garden that comprises the area to the southwest part of the property. That portion of the farm is surrounded by the labs to the south and the north. The machine is watered automatically by the bioreactor with its 1,000L rain barrel.

There are multiple beds, both in-ground and raised. There are multiple layers of soils, beds, sensors, and composting systems. But on that early spring morning, it looked like the four spinning sprinklers on the steel arbor looked like Nitrogen atoms around a Magnesium atom in the center.

This Molecule is Very Important

Chlorophyll pops up everywhere on an urban farm. It’s in the leaves; it has a doppelganger in the solar panels and various sources for obtaining water and nutrients flowing into and from the farm. Here is a map of the farm on the east-west axis. that long east-west axis is where the long phytol tail runs through and interacts with important aspects of Mezzacello’s teaching and ecological systems.

It’s an important molecule. Helping my applied STEM students in my camps and workshops to be able to recognize the functional structure of the molecule. I can relate the Lewis Structure to the structures of the farm and the sustainable relationships that they have in common.