The church locator app isn't working on my phone, so no church today, but I had a busy day anyway, with a lot to see in the Detroit area. In the evening, I left the Detroit area and drove to West Lansing -- home of Michigan State University.
It has been 5 days since the car accident in Toronto. The day it happened, my neck muscles felt tight and I hoped it would go away in a few days, but it hasn't. In fact, it has gotten worse, and bothers me. Too bad the driver who hit me wasn't paying attention to the road!! Hopefully, the injury just needs time to recover, but I'm starting to wonder.
-- Community Farms --
I have read about efforts in the Detroit area to create community gardens. There are a few reasons behind it, and maybe more... to provide fresh food for people in the community (expecially for those who are struggling), to help beautify areas that are blighted, and to increase feelings of community.
I did some searching online, and came up with three community farms in Detroit I wanted to visit today: D-Town Farm in Rouge Park, North Cass Community Garden in Midtown, and Georgia Street Community Gardens in east Detroit.
D-Town Farms had several volunteers today. They started with help from Detroit Black Food Security Network and Keep Growing Detroit. The land is part of Rouge Park, which belongs to the city. Detroit leased 7 acres to D-Town Farms for growing food.
There are a few paid workers to manage the farm. The rest are volunteers. The farm is a food co-op with lots of members and a store downtown near Eastern Market. You don't have to be a co-op member to buy produce at the store.
One of the crops they grow is a grain called Amarand. I had never heard of it. It is popular in Jamaica, where it is called Cabalou. The farm grows a red and a yellow variety of the grain.
The farm grows the typical tomatoes, bell peppers, beans, chard, corn, onions, and other familiar crops. A couple of hoop greenhouses had collards, and dried onions and garlic. Unfortunately, the greenhouse with the collards was infested with moths that were eating the leaves.
I had never seen okra growing, but they had it. The two photos below are okra plants.
I wanted to visit D-Town Farm's co-op store, but didn’t find it.
The second community farm I visited was the North Cass Community Garden. It is located near the "Dally in the Alley" festival I attended last night in Midtown.
The North Cass Gardens have raised beds that are assigned to individuals. They can grow whatever they want in their raised bed... flowers, vegetables, etc. There is a long waiting list for the beds. A florist grows flowers in one of the beds.
A very nice lady named Marguerite showed me around. The garden gate is locked with a combination lock when none of the raised bed owners are there, but she showed me around before locking up. They have shared tools and some shared compost piles.
Some of the farmers grow the "three sisters" in their raised garden. The three sisters are the traditional corn, squash, and beans that grow well together and form a traditional diet.
The third community farm I visited was the Georgia Street Community Gardens. When I got there, it didn’t look very impressive. It was small and not much was growing. What I later learned is that this set of gardens actually 17 different lots around Georgia and Vinton streets, so I got an inaccurate understanding of its success -- especially since they are in a blighted area.
-- The Eastern Market --
The Eastern Market is a local farmers market. Most of the activity is on Saturdays, so there wasn't much produce for sale today. The main outdoor market was empty, but a few farmers were situated outside an indoor venue.
The indoor venue was mostly crafts, but I bought a homemade apple cider donut and some apple cider from a lady.
I enjoyed listening to a one man band playing and singing blues music outside. Some of the buildings around the market had colorful murals.
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