Harvest time!

Sort of....we picked these beauties today. We're having them for dinner with some basil in a puttanesca. Yum!

If our tomatoes were ready to harvest, it would have been a straight from the garden meal.

Community Garden Tour

Since I've neglected my blog terribly, I thought I'd update it with pictures taken at the community garden three weeks after the grand opening. 

This garden was 3 inch seedlings when she planted it!

I love the happy witch in her plot. Not to mention the happy tomato plants!

You can get a good look at our highly technical watering system. Large barrels and a bucket! I keep a watering can in the trunk of my car and use that to water my plot when I visit.

More urban farm talk

Can I say again how much I love this idea? 

The Detroit-based Self-Help Addiction Rehabilitation Inc. (SHAR), a nonprofit drug rehab center funded by the state and others, is proposing that it be given up to 2,000 acres of vacant city-owned land to farm.

The project, known as Recovery Park, would have the dual purpose of teaching addicts therapeutic and marketable skills and rehabbing the city itself, said SHAR's chief executive, Dwight Vaughter.

"We're looking at it as a way to use some of this space in Detroit to make it more purposeful, as well as to provide employment for our residents and people who may be disenfranchised," Vaughter said. "So we thought it was a perfect fit for us to get involved in."

Coming seven weeks after the Free Press revealed businessman John Hantz's proposal for a commercial farm, the SHAR proposal shows how the interest and enthusiasm for urban farming is growing rapidly as a potential solution to Detroit's problem of widespread vacancy.

Urban planners estimate that about 40 square miles, or roughly one-third of Detroit's land area, is vacant or contains abandoned buildings.

Detroit already is home to hundreds of small farming plots, most less than 1 acre in size. Local growers either consume the food themselves or donate it to food banks or others.

Read the entire story here

A picture is worth a thousand words