Urban Farm or Homestead and the Road Between

Is Mezzacello an urban farm or homestead and what is the road between? We are asked this question a lot. I answer an urban farm. This is not a homestead. In the literature, a homestead is a parcel of land capable of fully supporting a family. This is not possible here at Mezzacello. We do not have enough space, animals or biomass.

What We Lack We Create or Store

The image at the top of this blogpost is a practical meal made almost entirely from food grown at Mezzacello. I qualify this as almost because of the butter. We made the butter from heavy cream. It’s the beef, pork, grains, and dairy that we lack entirely. This is why we are not a homestead.

I love Mezzacello because I focus on the applied STEM applications of ag science. I know I cannot grow enough to support me, but I can optimize what I can. The biggest obstacle on an urban farm, after growing food effectively of course, is preserving it!

I follow Huw Richards on YouTube. He is a master gardener located in Wales and he created the idea of part-time sustainability or temporal sustainability. This is a very elegant way to reframe an urban garden, versus a homestead.

The FOODIST Blogs

The partnership here at Mezzacello between Rick and I is about specialization; I grow and provide food and resources and Rick turns that into amazing meals and nutrients. It’s important to us both. It is also why we created the FOODIST blogs. I wanted to document the endlessly creative ways we preserve and use food. This is the road between.

In all of the FOODIST blogs I try to clearly articulate when we are using fresh food from the gardens. Rick is very creative and well-read. He reads a great deal and is very curious and talented. If you follow #Mezzacello on social media you will know how imaginative he is.

A favorite of Rick’s is Jacques Pepin. That is a favorite of mine too. We love Jamie Oliver as well. There is a great cookbook by Oliver called “Five Ingredients“. We love that book too! As it really just requires a well-stocked pantry and minimal fresh ingredients.

We know you will enjoy the FOODIST blog. Rick uses the blog as a recipe box. I think that is lovely. It is my hope that is has a bigger life than that! LOL! Regardless, we will expand the blog as we have so much food to harvest and store. Let’s get to cooking!

#ProjectMartian really worked well. Especially during the COVID19 isolation. Last year every bit of manure and green and brown for compost went through the #Bioreactor. I was mocked for using it. I was chastised for calling it that. But it did work. This year I used compost from the bioreactor in all of my 24 garden beds. But in eight of them I got cocky and amended the beds with horse manure. That was a good idea in theory except for one important fact; there was life in the manure. Bugs and weeds to be exact. I placed a layer of diatomaceous earth on every bed as a last step. In the outside manure beds, the life came from below the layer of diatomaceous earth. The system worked perfectly when I used “Eden’s Ghost” and just compost from the bioreactor. I was stunned to find all these weeds beneath the burlap today.

This is the design cycle in action. This is a failure that is going to drastically curtail my productivity. Along with the weeds came a whole class of pill bug and centipede that LOVE rich, wet, dark, organic environments. And now I have to sterilize the top 6cm of the infected beds. But I learned a valuable lesson; on Mars you have to use what you have. Had I stayed true to that mission I would not have discovered this flaw in my system. Lesson learned. Cook all manure before you add it to a #ProjectMartian bed. I am glad I learned this here and not on Mars.

The Rule of Sustainability – 3 and 5 Strategy

Sustainability is a really important topic in the world right now. We need more of it, but we need better metrics to define what “it” is. Like the word, “nice” sustainability means many different things to many different people. At Mezzacello I have developed a rule of thumb that helps me better define sustainability. I call it the Three and Five Strategy. It is really quite simple.

• Incorporate at least three other ecosystems or resources from Mezzacello.

• MUST provide at a MINIMUM five new unique resources to Mezzacello.

• Three in — Five out and all within one 18 month period of time.

This has eliminated all precious things from my farm. Nothing withers or remains alive through hard labor or constant vigilance. No extraordinary measures need to be taken. If one input is compromised, it can be substituted but only temporarily and not constantly; never constantly. If the systems cannot sustain that ecosystem, then that ecosystem lacks merit. Let me provide two examples. One from the natural world and one from Mezzacello.

Natural World: The human nose

Inputs:

1. Allows the sinus cavity to exist and remain at atmospheric pressures
2. Allows air to be purified through the cilia and mucus membranes
3. Provides protection via the senses (proprioceptor and Olfactory Nervous Systems)
4. Incorporates the lymphatic and immune response factors readily as a first line of defense

Outputs

1. Provides the sensation of smell and taste
2. Pressurizes and maintains the esophagus and bronchial cavities
3. Provides mucus for multiple parts of the respiratory system
4. Preserves moisture to the body
5. Allows the eyes to remain equidistant and focused for bipedal vision
6. Gives the human face character
7. Keeps the cartilage and skin of the face under tension
8. Holds glasses on your face
9. Secretes fats and toxins from the body
10. Cools/heats the brain cavity directly
11. Allows the palette to remain dynamic and flexible
12. Home to beneficial bacteria and immune response factors
13. Serves as an early warning system in the case of impact to the face
14. Allows the lips to purse and tense by providing cartilage and structure

Mezzacello: The Formal Gardens

Inputs:

1. Provides biomass seasonally on demand
2. Gives shelter, food and attraction to beneficial pollinators and birds
3. Provides shelter, privacy, and protection to all the inhabitants of the farm
4. Gives a sense of beauty and place to the neighborhood
5. Attracts interest in our mission here at Mezzacello

Outputs:

1. Biomass
2. A carbon sink for compost
3. Flowering shrubs and flowers
4. Shoots and berries that are edible
5. A place for the poultry to forage for pests
6. Shade and moisture
7. Cooling drafts and whimsy
8. Succor for the mind and spirit
9. Attracts beneficial microbial life, bacteria and fungus to the surrounding ecosystems
10. Improves the diversity of compost and fertilizers
11. Provides a sense of pride and purpose
12. Deflects noise from a busy main thoroughfare
13. Increases the amount of molecular oxygen and moisture to surrounding ecosystems
14. Provides protection from the east, north, and south from pathogens in the wind stream

So now when I plan any new system at Mezzacello, it MUST incorporate at a MINIMUM THREE inputs and FIVE carefully chosen outputs/benefits to all of the six systems at Mezzacello. If any one of those 14 benefits seems frivolous to you, I ask that you re-examine your priorities. During COVID19 lockdown, every single one of them became incredibly valuable and obvious to me. Through reflection, effort, and application, sustainability thrives.

Count your blessings,
but remember blessings are positive
so never divide or subtract;
just add and multiply.

Jim Bruner

Spring 2021 and the Brunerform

It was 14C in Ohio yesterday and this is my observation of spring 2021 and the Brunerform. Rick and I decided to go out and talk to Mezzacello and see what she might be needing. We saw a lot of trash (hidden beneath the snows) and many signs of life! It was a nice little jaunt.

Rick checked on all of his formal garden beds to encourage them. I checked on the pond, the potager herb beds and my #ProjectMartian beds. Oof! They need love, but they are thriving.

I let the poultry into the potager vegetable beds. They went crazy and TURNED everything over for me. Thanks! Mental note: Don’t spend $50 on mulch to make the walkways between the beds look clean. Those birds turned EVERYTHING over. LOL!

But that is a natural sustainable system for you. The compost beds look terrific! I have 2,000 Liters of additional compost cured in the #ProjectMartian BioReactors. That will be added into the potager beds and into parts of Rick’s gardens.

It’s only fair, since his gardens provided a lot of the biomass. I snapped this quick photo of Rick and I. As per usual I am in my “Brunerform”.

The Brunerform

One question I get asked a lot about sustainable #AppliedSTEM bio-engineered gardens is why I am always wearing a dress shirt and bow tie while I am gardening. It’s an important question that deserves an answer; It’s because I want to.

Everyone assumes that I wear expensive clothes. WRONG. That bow tie costs more than everything else I am wearing in this photo – including the hat and shoes. I wear Thrift Store clothes.

I prefer natural fibers that can be shredded and added back into the system or at the very least, re-donated. I am not insane. I am just aware that nature recycles everything, even beauty.

This is what I fondly refer to as my “Brunerform” You’ll rarely see me out of it. In fact, amongst my friends and neighbors, they loudly complain when they see me out of it. It is my style and it has become my brand.

Every time I use the Hashtag #GentlemanFarmer I mean it. What is your impression you want to make on the world? Mine is classy and always #BattleReady in a boardroom or in a garden room, take your pick.

Hot Water Means Boiling Hot

When you live on a farm it is essential that you have access to both fresh water AND hot water. It is an extreme LUXURY to be sure, and a nuisance when you just need to wash your hands. But when I need hot water to sterilize or clean things 20 times a day, well the choice is obvious.

There are days where I dream of what our new kitchen will be like. I think about tile and marble and soft fluffy towels while Mozart plays in the background. But for now we use what we have and I really need hot water in this farm kitchen and this is hot!

But seriously, who am I kidding? It is going to be easy clean and probably stainless steel. We are not people that are willing to waste resources for comfort.

Eventually a Mudroom for the Farm

That ship has sailed! Comfort is a luxury we can’t actually afford and remain honestly #Sustainable. The world is more complicated than just comfort. We love our farm, and our place in this ecosystem.

We have plans to install a mudroom dedicated to sterilizing and treating tools on the farm. Then we will include a gas powered on demand water heater. That will be a nice luxury.

If I ever had to live in suburbia I would lose my damn mind. I am a part of the web of life, and that web is part of me. Pretty and pastoral things are fun but they do not last.

There is a place for pretty and soft; but it’s not where life, food, and sanitation meet on an #Urbanfarm. No offense to suburban kitchens. But this is where reality meets the road. I am empathetic to needing cleanliness all the time, and not just when I need it now.

The Paths To The Ecosystems

Mezzacello is first and foremost a private residence and it is a yard. But it is also an urban garden and an urban farm. There will be supplies that must be brought in and products that will travel from one ecosystem to another, you can see that in the paths to the ecosystems left in the snow.

Traveling from the house to the poultry and rabbit warrens leaves a path. It was interesting to see that path so clearly on this winter day. Like a road traveling down the north south axis of the house, the herbal parterres, the aquatic ecosystem, the henyard, the potager garden and the greenhouses.

This path gets used so much I have had to plant high traffic grass seed because the original grass just became a muddy path. I never really documented that though. Let’s face it, a wintery path and healthy, impact tolerant grass is a better image than a muddy path.

But that path is a superhighway of activity amongst all six of these ecosystems. I am really proud of it. I’ll be traveling on it to shut the animals away safe for the night, shortly.

With the success of Project Martian last summer, I am making plans to extend my research. Last summer was about optimizing yield and harvest ability of the selected crops. I am still doing well in my winter larder! This spring and summer will be about implementing technology and automation to extend my mission into other food deserts.

Stay tuned for #ProjectBioLEGO. My first foray into automation agriculture and ecosystem management.

It’s winter, 2021. This is the fourth winter in the aquatic ecosystem for the fish at Mezzacello. If you’re not familiar, start with this nightmare or this, or this. I have busted my gluteal muscles trying to learn what Mother Nature needs to create a #Sustainable aquatic ecosystem and make it manageable for a 21st Century life style. It has been a rewarding journey. So much #Physics #Biology #Chemistry #Ecology #Hydrodynamics #Stats #Mathematics #Topology #Geometry and #Legal issues. All of this. From having the police called on me for digging a six foot grave, to mastering hydrology and pump technology and #Backup Systems to the magic of getting handwritten poems in the fence written by neighborhood kids. This particular ecosystem at Mezzacello has been a wonderful journey. Recently I went out and looked into the clear 1.7m abyss at the perfectly content fish I was reminded of the Haiku that one of my summer camp kids wrote to me on 2018:

Sky of clear water
Dug deep down into the ground
Warm in winter, sound

That’s the aquatic ecosystem in a nutshell.

After spending most of 2020 experimenting and learning to maximize yields, I decided to start using some of the food from #ProjectMartian. My video intern at PAST Foundation was feeling under the weather, so I decided it was a good time to make Martian Matzo Soup.

This was a #ProjectMartian mashup: MirePoix (carrots, onion, celery, oil, thyme, parsley) prepared and frozen at time of harvest. Then there was a chicken harvested, cooked, and vacuum sealed in the spring from the freezer. I also made chicken broth made from chicken carcass and spare Martian vegetables tailings that I had frozen and stored in freezer. Lastly there was the Matzo ball mix made with stale matzo crackers (a gift (fresh, two years ago) from a PAST Foundation colleague that I found and ground into matzo meal) and dehydrated onion, garlic, and celery mixed in that was packaged and vacuum sealed and stored for another day – like today! It’s make your intern feel better day!

It took me 30 minutes from start to finish to make this soup. That’s it. My colleagues at PAST had to endure endless photos of the process. Looking at the first text:

To the last text of the finished soup was indeed 30 minutes.

Here is the recipe and it is crazy easy!

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots peeled and chopped
• 2 onions peeled and chopped
• 2 celery sticks chopped
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• or 2 mirepoix frozen cakes (2 cups)
• 4 cups water or chicken broth
• 4 cups water
• 2 cups chopped cooked chicken
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 Tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tbsp each Tarragon, Thyme, Parsley
• Salt and Pepper

Matzo Soup Base:

• 2/3 cup seasoned matzo meal
• 2 Eggs
• 2 TBsp oil
• 1 Tbsp baking soda and 1 Tbsp vinegar or lemon juice or
• 2 Tbsp seltzer water

1. In a 4 quart pan, add olive oil and fresh vegetables. Alternatively add oil and melt mirepoix. Add 4 cups of broth or water with bouillon. Bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat. Add in chicken, wine and herbs. Let simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Prepare Matzo balls:

Matzo Balls:

1. In a stainless or glass bowl (not plastic) add two eggs. Add in the oil.
2. Add in the seltzer water OR combine the baking soda and acid and mix.
3. Pour either the seltzer water or baking soda acid into bowl. Whip vigorously with a FORK – not a whisk until frothy.
4. Add in Matzo meal (you can buy matzo meal kits, but making your own is the way to go on Mars – just saying)
5. Gently combine the meal with the frothy liquids until just mixed. Do not over mix. You want lots of air!
6. Cover matzo mix with cling wrap, a cover or a cloth. Set in refrigerator for 15 minutes.
7. Form 3cm balls.

Finish your soup:

1. Add matzo balls to the simmering soup.
2. Baste the matzo balls with broth.
3. Cover pan and let matzo balls cook for 15-20 minutes on low heat.
4. Matzo balls will swell! This is normal. In fact as you reheat this soup the balls will disintegrate; this is OK.
5. The magic of matzo is threefold:

• the Uber simplicity!
• the flavor!
• The antibiotic and antioxidants in this are off the hook!

Enjoy! PS my PAST Foundation intern was VERY concerned that the Martian Matzo Soup was purple. I explained that when you live on Mars, you eat what you have. We had Purple carrots. He ate it, and he loved it! So did mom!

I told him to tell his mom she needs to go to Msrs! LOL! just kidding. Juana, this blog post is dedicated to you!

This summer of 2020 was the summer of #ProjectMartian and the #Bioreactor. My bioreactor holds 1 cubic meter of biomass. I added 70 liters of bio inoculate to jumpstart the digestion in the bioreactor. As the system digests, the greens and browns break down and additions of 100 liters of water is all I added over summer. This week I drained the initial bioreactor. I got 264 liters of powerful fertilizer. Some of that is rainwater. But all of it is pungent and incredibly fertile. That is 70 gallons of fertilizer.

The liquid fertilizer is pungent I am not going to lie; it smells like the Union Station subway in August. But mix in a gallon of glucose-enriched water to each 39L bin and you have enough inoculate to start  THREE new bioreactors. So I started two more and diluted the rest to a mixture of 1 to 3 with water and fertilized ALL of Mezzacello. This is the very essence of sustainability. This bioreactor could produce compost four times in an Earth year. That means 4,000 gallons of fertilized water to grow anything on Earth or Mars.

i am pleasantly surprised and delighted how this #Bioreactor system pays it forward. Just like life; It demands that you make more. That is the very point of life. Now I just need to manage the balance of N3 and Sulphur, probably add a filter and a fan. But for now if you live on a subway platform, you’ll feel right at home. Nonetheless I am very proud of myself!