Nuisance and Willful Animals

This has certainly been a summer of learning for me and my summer camp students. First after working so hard all summer to get my raised beds built and planted and trying to get the hens to lay, I have a new problem. Nuisance and Willful Animals.

Raised Beds, Raised Problems

The raised beds are for the most part thriving. Particularly the hybrid hugelkultur beds that rain their own water. Their moisture and Nitrogen levels remain every consistent.

I really like this design for a raised bed as they are incredibly durable and hold a great deal of material. Having them so close to the bioreactor’s raised water tower makes it easier to manage these as well.

As for my six raised beds to the east of the parterre, the results are mixed. They are hard to water, and the watering system I have devised is not sufficient to water all of them. Additionally the bioreactor does not generate enough water pressure – neither does city pressure – to get sufficient water to Bed 1 at the southern edge of the garden.

Then There Are The Squirrels and That ONE Chicken…

This was the year that the squirrels realized they could climb the vertical farming trellis and eat every lastone of the leaves off my sweet potatoes. I am furious!

I am in the process of applying a low-watt electrical connection to the steel trellis to deter them from climbing. I am alse regularly spraying the sweet potato vines with cinnamon and cayenne pepper. That will give those greedy little demons a jolt and a mouthful of regret!

So She Flew the Coop!

Then there’s the chicken who has steadfastly decided that she does not want to lay her eggs like a plebeian in the coop with the OTHER common chickens. No, she wants to lay her eggs in the raised bed with the vertical growing tower and all the missing sweet potato leaves.

I found a clutch of eight eggs in that bed the other day. What is that bird thinking? I am even more surprised that the raccoons didn’t find them.

Never a dull moment here at Mezzacello. But I love what the City of Columbus Parks and Recreation kids did with the systems they helped me redesign. It was fun and I continue to learn a lot!

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This is a part of the City of Columbus Parks and Recreation Summer Grant Grant #1521-2023.

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The Evolution of the Vertical Gardens at Mezzacello

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.

An Investment in Metal

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…

Not Just for Food

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.

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