Compost Update 2023 – Restocking the Bioreactor

This is a tutorial and a love letter to friends who have helped me along the way. So I am throwing an Easter celebration with a compost update 2023 – Restocking the Bioreactor! If you know anything about compost, you know it’s a feast or famine affair.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

In the spring, browns are hard to come by, but greens are plentiful. In the winter, greens are hard to come by, but browns are plentiful. How does an industrious Urban Farmer meet this paradox?

By being thrifty and frugal. I harvest and store back greens and browns across all seasons. Grass clippings get treated with hydrated lime and stored in a dark cool space. Leaves get collected and covered through the winter the calcium hydroxide slows the loss of nitrogen and the formation of ammonia.

This processing insures I have sufficient biomass to add to my systems across all seasons. It also helps me keep the greens and browns in suspension through the darkest, coldest paart of the winter. Then I can start resetting the IBC 1000L Bioreactor blocks on demand in the spring.

A Little Help From My Friends

None of this would be possible without the help from several friends. When we first started Mezzacello, we were tool poor. A dear widowed friend donated all of her husband’s tools to us, many of which we still use – daily.

Another dear friend donated tools from their dad that are MISSION CRITICAL to the Bioreactor. Namely a leaf shredder and several pumps and hand tools. I have replaced the leaf shredder, but learning what a transformative tool this was was an amazing discovery.

Keep building, experimenting, planning and saving. Life cares and love shares. On this western holiday, I am grateful for rebirth and opportunity.

Let’s change the world. Let’s do it sustainably. Let’s do it together – I love you all.

Mezzacello and the Harvesting of Gratitude

Today is 11/24/2021. It’s the day before Thanksgiving here in the US, and I am filled with ennui. It’s not that it’s a dark day, or bad things have happened. Quite the opposite, actually. Today is the day to realize the need to reflect on Mezzacello and the harvesting of gratitude. Harvesting gratitude? What does that mean?

2021 was the most amazing summer. The year was spent working with kids and experimenting. There were many great successes – and failures – in my gardens and in the people I worked with. I won a spot in my city’s Top 50 most influential futurists. The farm’s systems are more sophisticated and effective than ever. Things are great, but still I feel like I am not enough. I was lacking dignity and grace.

Grace, Dignity and Purpose

My problem is – put very simply: I do not know how to be enough for myself.

I spend way too much time comparing and resolving to be “better tomorrow than today” that I take precious little time to reflect on the change I am and what else I have done. I am terrified of being caught sleeping on the job, or resting on my laurels. And like all artists, when I look at my work, I am only able to see WHAT ELSE I should have done and not what I actually did.

Jim

The Meta Modern Plague

This in a nutshell is the meta modern plague. Meta Modernism is a new concept; it was coined by a barkeep at Harvest Pizza one night spent having cocktails with my friends. Meta Modernism in short is this:

We have to compete not just with our hopes and fears but also with our reputation — and our legacy. So one must resolve to spend “today “as an attempt to make a tomorrow’s meaning thankful, gracious and kind. Kindness is what the world needs more of. It is such an easy feast.

Show Up for People

A dear friend of mine sent me a lovely note out of the blue a few months back and a small gift. I was caught off guard because I was feeling so much stress about getting Mezzacello closed and ready to sleep through the winter. I wanted to give tours, but I was paralyzed by feelings of stubborn – and stupid inadequacy. Here is a picture of the book my friend sent;

This was a literal breath of fresh air for me. I was exhausted, conflicted and struggling. This summer I was diagnosed with a condition that overwhelmed me and filled me with relief. It was an explanation why everything seems so jumbled and important and ridiculous all at once. My friends already knew, but as usual, I was late to the party. That’s where kindness comes in.

Running #UrbanAgTech summer camp was a transformational opportunity this summer to be sure, but this tiny little gesture of kindness and grace made everything fit together. I could see the whole and the puzzle was complete.

Be Thankful and be the Gratitude in Someone Else’s Day

So this post is about more than Autumn or the hard winter, or the Thanksgiving Holiday or even your own self. Just as the trees shed their leaves, this season is about unloading the nonsense that you don’t need anymore. The one benefit to being a tree is that the DNA of the tree knows when to transform; but humans, we need a reason.

If change is the one constant in this universe, then be the change. More importantly, be grateful for the opportunity to face any obstacle; Name it and change it. If you see others that can’t make that leap of faith, then offer your hand. There is no shame in kindness, and there is no weakness in vulnerability.

We are so afraid or stuck in our notion of what OTHERS think, or that we are not ENOUGH for others, that we forget to ask ourselves, are we enough for US right now? I feel like I am. I will tamp down the #NotEnough raging fire; and I will feed the lamp that lights my way forward instead. Gratitude is light. It is a form of vulnerability, and it births only love, grace and wisdom. Be wise enough to want to change for yourself. Thank you to you all.

When planning the ornamental garden, besides playing off the house, I drew on four different categories of plants.

1. The plants that were already on the grounds.
2. The plants needed to create the look and feel of the plan.
3. The plants that bring sentimental values and recreate garden memories.
4. The unexpected source of plants from friends’ yards that they either wanted to remove, or needed to divide; Iris, hosta, liriope came from these sources.

Already on the property was a lilac that had overgrown the spot it was in. Peonies that had an old fashioned quality that were a keeper. Wood hyacinth, narcissus, daffodils, and surprise lillies were in clumps. All begging to be divided and reorganized. Instead of replacing them or cutting them out, I propagated and replanted them. My lilac “baby mama” bush was the start of hedgerow of lilacs. The garden was divided into rooms and beds. The narcissus was divided and spread in one room. The daffodils into another room. Color and waves of texture began to drive patterns and excitement.

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To create a “historic” town garden, in an “Italianate” plan, meant hedgerows Would be needed to divide spaces and create “rooms”. I preferred boxwood, but could have used yew or holly. Privet would have been another alternate that would have been easy propagate. Horn beams were chosen for height and aesthetic. How patient and immediate I was willing to be dictated some of my choices. Some things were dictated, regardless of how much time it might take, because of their sentimentality. Leading me to the final

I drew on memories and sentimental values for what I was going to buy, or become more resourceful to collect. The places I’ve been, and felt a connection to were channeled into this last type of collection. Being from Virginia and Carolina, boxwood and monkey grass was a “need”. To create the rooms and the Italianate style of the garden, meant horn beams or something similar, to create walls of green. Filling out those bones were the anemones I kept noticing and loved. The magnolia and tree peonies were brought in for the love of places and people they reminded me of.

My friendship garden is the surprise of community. What my friends had that they thought I would enjoy. Their provenance sometimes trumped what varieties I would have preferred. There’s “Aunt May’s“ Crepe Myrtles, the “Pragati” and “Rosen” irises, “Bill’s” tobacciana and foxglove. Most of these have been consigned to the southern edge of the garden. They continue to grow, spread, and flourish.

Start with where you are, go where you need to, and finish with romance. These are the parts and bones of a garden that will keep you intrigued, engaged, and inspired.