By Suzanne Vanderhoef

A St. Louis-area woman has turned her property into not one, but two regenerative microfarms: MOshrooms in Ellisville and ABC Microfarm – for Always Be Composting—in the City. What that means is, Danielle Meert has transformed her suburban lawn into perennial pollinator gardens, edible landscaping, rainwater capture areas and the main focus: soil building and sustainable, edible vegetation.

“The biggest source of pollution is residential landscaping,” explains Meert. “All the lawns, everything that we are putting on all the fertilizers, all of the mixes to have the greenest grass. That’s the biggest irrigated crop in the country. So what I’m doing is pretty extreme. I’ve killed all my grass and I’m put an all edible landscaping and have my little micro farm.”

But beyond that, Meert is also trying to get others in her community to become engaged in a more sustainable lifestyle as well. One way she’s doing that is by creating a residential food waste composting service for families in the Rockwood and Parkway School Districts. Participants leave a bucket of food waste by their garage or front porch and once a week she picks them up and takes that waste back to be fermented and turned into compost. In the spring and fall, she then delivers compost back to neighbors who want to use it for their gardens.

“My ultimate goal is to convince people to, number one, stop fertilizing their grass, hopefully remove some grass and put in a pollinator garden, maybe grow some food and just have conversations about the environment,” Meert says. “I think we need people to see it’s not hard or it’s not easy, but eventually if you put enough effort into it, it’ll be something that everyone can enjoy.”

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