BioChar and the Art of the Slow Burn
How summer camp kids were making biochar. Biochar is biotic matter that is burnt and kept a low oxygen environment.
Mezzacello Project Fire Soap
A guest blog post by two middle school campers at Mezzacello charged with converting waste weeds and wood into ash to mix with glycerine and lye to make soap.
Fishacello Artificial Wetland
Today we created a platform for the Fishacello Artificial Wetland. We built this at Mezzacello Urban Farm. We created this artificial wetland out of a lot of various materials. In our blog post today, we will be giving you this list of materials and how we created a partial wetland. Enjoy!
Fishacello and Life Below Water
How an urban farmer accidentally used an atom collider to turn his rabbits into fish at Fishacello. This blog is written by three young campers at my Mezzacello Urban Farm’s “LifeBelow Water” summer camp.
How Menterns Can Save The World
Part Mentor and part Intern, the MenTerns are here at Mezzacello Urban Farm to explore, learn, and teach how we can empower our youth to save the world for themselves. They will live in and change this world. They are invested in saving it. Kids are aware enough that they need to do something, something bold, brave, and different. They needed a safe and gracious place to practice, fail, recover, and triumph. This is the story of how MenTerns can save the world.
Ecology Connections Camp Blog
Welcome to the Ecology Connections Camp Blog. In this blog campers will be submitting research and documentation of the work they have done and the STEM concepts they have learned and mastered at this weeks' camp. Each day will have a heading and this will be entirely compiled by campers.
Mezzacello Age of Steel Part 5
This is part four of a multi-part detailing of Mezzacello Urban Farm's transition from wood to steel in its infratsructure. This is project bedtime dragon in the potager garden.
The Foodist: Pasta With Butternut Squash and Sage Brown Butter
This is a hearty and naturally vegetarian dish. You can add additional protein if you wish, but it is not necessary. This is great hot on a fall or winter night or served cold as a summer salad. The flavor is exceptional, especially with the sage, and it's very filling!
MenTern Update 2025
The MenTerns for 2025 are a fun and eclectic group. Artists, Engineers, Biologists, Veterinarians, Geneticists, and Industrial Warriors! This year, the MenTerns are really stepping into their own space and I couldn’t be more proud. This is the MenTern update 2025.
Three Books: One New Vision of Learning
After a very intense summer camp at Mezzacello Urban Farm around sustainably using wind energy I had a powerful dream. This dream revolved around three books: "Alice's Adventures in wonderland" by Lewis Carroll, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl, and "A Wrinkle In Time" by Madeline L'Engle. The dream was a response to a conversation I had with the kids about their favorite books and why.
Maxwell Is Incredible
Hello Sarah! My name is Maxwell, I'm 12 years old, and I'm one of Jim's MenTerns at Mezzacello. As a MenTern I help Jim teach all of the kids at camp. This week the theme for our camp is all about wind power and how we can use it.
Morphic Resonance, Math, and
The "universe" is a mystery. It "speaks" through life, math, pattern, energy, and systems. When one system, pattern, structure, or process appears again and again, we call that Morphic Resonance. Morphic means having form or shape. Resonance means the impact of frequency on material. Lets dig into Morphic Resonance, Math, and Life.
Entanglement, Information, Uncertainty, and Poker
Today in Atomic Farming at Mezzacello Urban Farm, my MenTern, Grady co-taught a section on Quantum Entanglement through a card game called, “Indian Poker”. In this game, each players “wears” a card on their forehead and has to guess what their card is. In the quantum world this is entanglement and decoherence. When you know one piece of data, you can INSTANTLY collapse all fields and know everything. This is how human consciousness, chicken eyes, and quantum computers work.
The Super Small and the Quantum World
We hear a lot about the super small and the quantum world in our emerging tech in the world, but do we really understand the implications? It’s not enough for something to be small; it must also come with the magic that is ONLY possible when you are dealing with the world of very short distances and volumes that even light has issues with.
Emerging Products at Mezzacello.org
Mezzacello Urban Farm is committed to sustainability and organic solutions to food and resources. Each year we design, build, test and modify a fertilizer product line to share our wealth. Last summer we created “Fintastic Fertilizer” a emulsion of algae, fish waste, gypsum, and comfrey tea. The summer camp kids tested and modified the product and designed the marketing.
2025 Olde Towne East Tour of Homes
Exciting news! Mezzacello Urban Farm has been asked to be a stop on the 2025 Olde Towne East Tour of Homes. We were on the tour way back in 2017 when we had just bought the house started building the gardens.
Summer Camp Team Identity
Teams designed their team logo with the help of my MenTern Lula.
A Fresh Take on Summer Camps: One-Day Workshops & Mentorship in Action
At Mezzacello Urban Farm, I’ve always taught summer camps using a mix of the design cycle, systems thinking, and mentorship. But this year, a small shift sparked a big idea: what if one-day workshops could deepen and extend the impact of our week-long camps?
The Foodist: Potatoes Lyonnaise
Not gonna lie, this is one of my all-time favorite Rick meals at Mezzacello, The Foodist: Lyonnaise Potatoes. It is similar to his fantastic potator galette, but hot, crispy, smooth and loaded with flavor. He cooks it in a cast iron pan to really get that crispy maillard reactionand then finishes it in the oven that I replaced after I destroyed his old oven.
This is equally good reheated, although it can get greasy. Serve it for a brunch with a poached duck egg or as an appetizer with fresh goat cheese and a toothpick. This will be a crowd pleaser, fresh herbs are best, but dried will work.