Design Challenge: Water Sterilization
This design challenges explores how we steralize purified water to ensure safety. This design challenge is intended to extend the water purification design challenge.
Design Challenge: Water Purification
This design challenges explores three routes to collecting, cleaning, and purifying water for human and animal consumption. The three routes will include mechanical filtration, filtration and heating, and using filtration with activated charcoal.
Design Challenge: Physical Electricity
In this design challenge we will explore the basic nature of electricity and how we interact with it on an urban farm. From the low voltages of organics, to the higher voltages and amps of electronics, we will explore it all. The deliverable will be a battery, a solar panel, and the wiring that unites them.
Design Challenge: Making Feed On a Farm
My intern, Marcus, and I are developing a design challenge for Columbus City Schools around how we engineer feed here at Mezzacello. Using feed sources like oats, wheat germ, timothy hay, syrup, and cracked corn, we add other proteins, grasses and seeds grown here at Mezzacello like sunflower seeds, crickets, mealworms, and eggs. But our secret ingredient is edible weeds.
Mezzacello Urban Farm In a Nutshell
Mezzacello Urban Farm in a nutshell is a quick look at the who, what, where, when, and how of Mezzacello. We are at an inflection point and we need to focus on future growth. Here is the data about Mezzacello Urban Farm you need to know.
Mezzacello April 4, 2026 CleanUp Event
Spring will be here soon. The farm has been really pounded by snow ice and wind this winter. Looking for help April 4, 2026 to help me return my sustainabl;e systems back to peak performance and ready for camps and workshops.
The Foodist: Pork and Mushroom Sauce Fettucine
This was a surprise dish that Rick pulled together from what we had in the refrigerator and it was a delight! Pork chops, garlic, porcini mushrooms, fresh herbs, butter, wilted spinach, and fettuccine. Savory, flavorful, and complex, but so easy to make and the added bonus of being good hot or cold!
Amish-Inspired, STEM-Powered, Sustainability-Focused Urban Farm
Education is an active sport., and mentorship is a two-way street. If we want to change the world, we must also be willing to change ourselves, to fail and be willing to take risks, and ultimately to succeed. Children NEED to be part of that transformation and conversation. Welcome to Mezzacello Urban Farm.
The Foodist: Poor Man’s Pate
Winter is here and it is cold! It is definitely time for a rich and hearty, homemade cream of mushroom soup. It is rich, thick, and filling and loaded on a piece of homemade toasted bread and homemade butter it is divine!
Privacy, Protection, Poison, and Poultry
On the southern border of Mezzacello Urban Farm, we have a bold hedge of Manhattan Euonymus that adds a level of privacy and protection to the farm. It’s a clean hedge that we were able to propagate easily. It is however poison to poultry.
Metro J-Term 2026: Keeping Tilapia From Drowning
In this class, part of the Project INCA Sustain | Ability J-Term topic we discuss aquatic ecologies and fish. What we learned is that there are different aquatic environments, and the "Upside Down" of our life below water differ as well. Tilapia do not thrive in static ponds.
Metro J-Term 2026: Ribosomes and Tailored Proteins
Day three at Metro Middle School and it's time to switch the script on the biodome. Four student teams were created with specific folding instructions to make VERY specific protein structures that go together in specific ways. The dome emerged after just 10 minutes this way,
The Foodist: Oyster and Bacon Chowder
If you need a superb winter chowder that will warm everyone up and is delicious, this is it! Do not underestimate the depth of flavbor the oysters bring to this recipe. This oyster and bacon chowder was gone in an evening!
Metro J-Term 2026: Proteins, Rabbits, and Biodomes
10 days at The Metro Schools teaching five periods of 5,6,7, and 8th grade students #urbanfarming #stemeducation and biology, bioengineering, and simple machines. My innovation this year was creating three teams in each period. There were surprises.
Introduction to 2026 Sustain/Ability Programming
The 2026 Theme for Mezzacello Urban Farm’s Spring and Summer programming will be “Sustain/Ability”. The programming will continue to explore sustainability, energy, ecology, and STEAM-Focused problem solving. We are launching our programming January 10 - 24 at Metro School here in Columbus, OH.
Why The Amish Inspiration?
People ask us why we reference the Amish so much as an inspiration to building Mezzacello Urban Farm. The answer is simple. The Amish are a Venn Diagram to growing food and creating simple systems of production and achieving meaningful sustainability.
The Foodist: NYE Sustainable French Breakfast
In the spirit of renewal and sustainability I planned a fresh homemade breakfast from resources mainly found at Mezzacello Urban Farm. Eggs, herbs, vegetables, milled flour, homemade bread, butter, and cheese, and wine. It came out great and fills me with hope.
Exploring More Durable Outdoor Storage Bins
Plastic Bin revisited here and more on Polypropylene Resin options. I am really fond of these Craftsman and Plano toolbxes. They are watertight (100%) and they resist UV, CO, and CO2 degradation. During the Life Finds a Way summer camp this year, Team “Questionable Ethics” Placed a note to the fish in a Plano toolbox and lowered it to the bottom of the pond.
The End of an Era: Loudspeaker
The End of an Era: The Mezzacello Portable Loudspeaker has died. The USB C plug has come apart from the motherboard and it will no longer charge. Do I toss it or do I figure out how to get a charger adapted to the motherboard?
Plastic Bins, UV, CO, and Failure
Plastic Bins, UV, CO, and Failure. This blog discusses which plastic bins you can rely on on an urban farm, and which ones you must not use. It all comes down to sunlight, pollution, and chemistry, folks.