Installing a New Solar Array in Photos
This was a fun project. I managed to build and install this entire array on my own. I will share more details tomorrow.
This was a fun project. I managed to build and install this entire array on my own. I will share more details tomorrow.
If you follow my blog at Mezzacello at all you will undoubtedly have noticed my fascination with overhead gardening. With so few beds and such a small footprint for growing food, it makes good sense to grow up. I started this project with trellises made of bent rebar and welded wire that reached over two of the beds across the east west axis. Then I played with using cedar, but that was a failure.
The return to sturdier metal structures was an evolution of the #ProjectMartian bioreactor. I have found that steel in an urban garden makes for more sense than wood. This is not as obvious as you might think. One of the biggest obstacles to any structure in a downtown environment is pollution. Pollution degrades wood at a much faster rate than it does brick or stone, or as in this case, metal. I have replaced every bench and arbor in this garden that has been made of wood. The wood absorbs too much water and pollution. Steel is not affected as quickly.
We replaced the allee arbors with elegant steel arches. The bioreactor tower is steel, as is the roof of all new structures. Richard made an investment in a large (3m x 4m x 3m) arbor structure for the potager gardens. This will allow me to grow more food vertically and have the added benefit of allowing me to electrically ground it…
While I will use this amazing arbor structure to grow food (after I figure out how to anchor it securely) I will also use it for other things. Things like a landing pad for drones. This is logical because there are no trees overhead. Or I can mount solar panels and windmills. The food does not grow on top, it actually will hang on hooks below so those two gardens will not interfere with each other. I will be able to water from this structure as well. It is three meters high!
Stay tuned to this space. I will be continuing to evolve how I will use this structure over the winter and into spring of 2022. It is definitely not a one use deal. Maybe I will finally get the dome I have always wanted over the growing beds at Mezzacello? Maybe. Tell me what y0u think I should do with this structure in the comments. Meanwhile here is a gallery of the three of us assembling this structure in beds Beta 3 and Beta 4 and Gamma 3 and Gamma 4.
Mezzacello took a major step into the future this summer installing solar power systems with the help and guidance of the Ohio Farm Bureau Foundation, the PAST Foundation and Amazon. From the point of inception in 2015 to the present all of the power needs of the systems at Mezzacello have come from the home. This meant extension cords and municipal power run through to power everything. The writing is on the wall; To be carbon neutral, replicable, and sustainable Mezzacello needed to be energy-neutral. This was only achievable through a grant and some elbow grease.
I refer to these as “Gardens” because like everything at Mezzacello they have to be planned, maintained, sustained and harvested. I have tried to carefully and thoughtfully integrate them into the surrounding ecosystems. This will be power for all of the robotics systems, cameras, sensors, pumps, and heaters — all of it will come directly from renewable sources. This is a necessity and a luxury.
During the summer when I was running the #UrbanAgTech Summer Camps here at Mezzacello, we lost power with AEP due to a transformer pole accident. Not a big deal, except that after 12 hours of no water from the pumps, no air in the ponds, no filtration, and no heat on vulnerable chicks from heat lamps, power became a very big deal. So we had to buy a generator. Then we built and grew an energy garden.
It is our belief here at Mezzacello that energy and food will soon become inextricable resources. We need to be better stewards of the environment so that we can maintain fresh food and water resources. The more we continue to ignore our ecological situation the worse it will get. Plants will STILL grow, but the atmosphere and more importantly the climate will not be able to support the plants we count on to live. Plants will adapt, but there is no guarantee they will serve as a reliable food source.
So I am growing power to grow the systems to support the ecosystems at Mezzacello. And thanks to the gracious help from the Ohio Farm Bureau Foundation, I can help others build the same into their gardens. For a brighter, more energetic and effective future.