botany

Prep Your Soil, Plan Your Plantings

It’s important to plan your garden well. It’s also important to pay ATTENTION to the planting instructions that come on your seed packets. Otherwise your plants and vegetables will all go feral – literally. Take the case of the carrots…

Crazy snake carrots needed more amended soil to grow straight.

Adding a Bloom of Flavor

This year an herb garden was added to the “rooms” that were already installed. It was a compromise between Jim and I. The property and gardens are divided between ornamental for me, and pracical/productive or food for him. Actually it…

Bottles of EVOO with fresh herbs infused

From vacant lot to structured beds.

Once an idea had been formed about the divisions of the property, I rolled up sleeves and began to dig in. Literally. It didn’t take long to realize my little endeavor was a larger undertaking than I imagined. Landscape paint…

Winter Prep: researching and learning

It’s not just the urban garden that’s resting, but our bodies as well. But while the body rests, the mind engages. At Mezzacello the mind is almost always engaged; how else are you going to change the world, right? On…

Planning and researching for the downtime in winter.

Free Garden Hacks

I normally try to curate my own content. But this is some free gold. So I will save a link here and come back an amend it soon. https://www.naturallivingideas.com/garden-for-free/

Leeks picked one the fall are still growing in the winter.

Practicing Gratitude

Practicing gratitude is a woefully underrated skill in 21st Century America. We are consumed by the desire for efficiency and disdain inconvenience as if it were a mortal sin. We are allergic to nuisance. none of this is a sin,…

What To Grow

When planning the ornamental garden, besides playing off the house, I drew on four different categories of plants. The plants that were already on the grounds. The plants needed to create the look and feel of the plan. The plants…

The garden rooms at Mezzacello.

Staying Home When You Live on an Urban Farm

#COVID19 is a new paradigm. People are being required to Shelter In Place across the nation and definitely here in Columbus, OH. I am working for the first time directly in the same place of my husband. Right across the…

Working from home at the dining room table during theCOVID19 Quarantine.

Six Years of Constant Improvement and Modification

Everyone knows we started an urban farm on an inner city plot of land. What they might not realize is that we really did start from scratch. It’s the sixth anniversary of our first spring at Mezzacello. It’s also the…

Everyone Has to Eat Hostas

Most people think of hostas as decorative perennials or as deer food, but hostas are quite tasty when young shoots show up.

Hosta shoots can be eaten.