Hantz Farms

On the topic of farming Detroit, here is the website of Hantz Farms. Inspirational!

Decay and Growth in Detroit

I wish that I had photos of urban farms and gardens in Detroit, but our visit took place in the dead of winter.

These homes are visible from the windows of my father-in-law's house in Grosse Point.

It's just jaw-droppingly beautiful in this neighborhood. The architecture is Arts and Crafts, full of the quirks and secrets and difficulties of old homes, and the snow-covered gardens are immaculate. Just a few houses away is Lake Saint Claire.

This, on the other hand, is a common sight just a few miles away in Detroit. More stunning old houses - but these have frequently been abandoned, stripped, and set ablaze on Devil's Night. In between the houses the spaces are even more telling: empty lots full of weeds, where other houses used to be.


There is a quirky ray of sunshine in this particular neighborhood, however. (Taxi anyone?)

Yes, this house is covered with stuffed animals. This is the Heidelberg Project. In a nutshell, artists have bought the wrecks of homes in order to turn them into giant, colorful art projects.

I have to apologise for the inadequacy of these photos to truly capture the whimsy of this place. We stopped by only briefly at the end of a long tour of the city.

Strange and wonderful. Frequently absurd.

Frequently? Make that "always". Yes, those are shopping carts perched high on that tree.

This is the art equivalent of compost. Here, the detritus of the previous city breaks down and fuels the growth of the next one.

It's like looking at a bed full of tropical flowers in the heart of winter. The colors are astounding.

I want this fellow for my garden.

Here is a garden in which someone is growing chairs, among other oddments.


I could have taken thousands of photos here.

More photos of Detroit will follow!

Sometimes Big Ag sounds Good. . .

John Hantz wants to farm Detroit.

"A large-scale, for-profit agricultural enterprise, wholly contained within the city limits of Detroit. Hantz thinks farming could do his city a lot of good: restore big chunks of tax-delinquent, resource-draining urban blight to pastoral productivity; provide decent jobs with benefits; supply local markets and restaurants with fresh produce; attract tourists from all over the world; and -- most important of all -- stimulate development around the edges as the local land market tilts from stultifying abundance to something more like scarcity and investors move in. Hantz is willing to commit $30 million to the project. He'll start with a pilot program this spring involving up to 50 acres on Detroit's east side. 'Out of the gates,' he says, 'it'll be the largest urban farm in the world.'"

It appears thaty lines are already being drawn between this big approach to farming Detroit, and the smaller farming and gardening groups.

"Some of Hantz's biggest skeptics, ironically, are the same people who've been working to transform Detroit into a laboratory for urban farming for years, albeit on a much smaller scale. The nonprofit Detroit Agriculture Network counts nearly 900 urban gardens within the city limits. That's a twofold increase in two years, and it places Detroit at the forefront of a vibrant national movement to grow more food locally and lessen the nation's dependence on Big Ag."

I'm afraid I have to roll my eyes at the little guys in this case. Existing urban farms are absolutely doing a good thing for the city, but there is far more empty land than they are currently using.

The Seeds are Purchased!

I just bought the seeds for this years garden. A smidge over $100 on more seeds than I could possible fit in my garden, but that I need to cover the variety of plants I want. Last year when I waited until February many of the rare varieties were already sold out so I started early this year. I'm really looking forward to this year's garden!I ordered my seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds which is a company I'm happy to support.

Next up I'm going to have to start serious research on chickens.

". . .a better place to direct development aid. . ."

"Although Big Ag, many NGOs and other groups (e.g., the Gates Foundation and segments of the U.S. government) continually stress that the top three solutions to Africa's hunger problem are 1) more yield, 2) more yield, and 3) more yield (with additional U.S. food aid running a close fourth), Africa’s farmers have a lot more to worry about than yield. . . Designing and building appropriate technology – where the users’ many needs are taken into account before design begins – isn’t going to do much for corporate bottom lines, but elegant designs like the bicycle-powered grain mill might be a better place to direct development aid, instead of on GMOs and other projects that do more for corporate profits than for Africa."

Snippet taken from a blog post over at Mental Masala.

Detroit

We visited Chris' family in the Detroit area over Christmas, and his stepbrother gave me a fantastic tour of the city, in all of its sad glory. I'll post some photos just as soon as the hard drive of our photo-editing computer is replaced, again. In the mean time, someone else has written up a lovely post on the possibilities of urban farming in Detroit, including many links: clicky here. Enjoy!

Gardening Resolution for the New Year

I understand better now how a dedicated gardener - and gardeners are typically the nicest of people - can bristle when it is suggested that what they have planted may in some way be harmful.

Years ago, I tried to strike up a discussion about the autobiography of the "horse whisperer" Monty Roberts with a friend who rides horses. Her reaction was a terse dismissal of him. Of course: Roberts is of the opinion that the conventional method of breaking horses is abuse. What gentle lover of horses wants to believe that they are perpetuating the abuse of the animals that they love? Those who are convinced by Roberts' views would have to give up horses, or radically alter their involvement with horses.

I have given up housecats for similar ethical reasons: I am convinced that it is terribly difficult to keep indoor cats in a manner that is not abusive. The alternative is allowing cats to go outdoors, but outdoor cats wreck havoc on the populations of small wildlife. However, if I did not have a husband with cat allergies as the ultimate deciding factor, my love of cats might still win out. I would keep cats, and I would be cranky at anyone so holier-than-thou as to suggest that my keeping of cats were unethical.

Nobody likes to see their "harmless" and pleasurable pursuit politicized, but there is nothing we do as humans that can't be viewed through the lens of ethics, and found wanting. Take for example the flushing of the toilet. Such a regular and inconsequential action brings up issues of wasted water, of trees harvested and processed only to be flushed and sent for processing through a plant that likely overflows sewage into wild areas when it rains, and fossil fuels burned for the harvesting, processing, transport, and cleaning of all of the above. Try to spend a single hour pondering the ethics of every action you make sometime. It's a horrifying experience that will paralyze you for fear that any action is a bad action.

When faced with that yawning abyss of such paralysis, there is that all-too human trait that both protects us and keeps us locked into patterns of behavior: forgetfulness. How many times have I been disgusted with the meat industry and changed my eating habits for days, or weeks, only to slowly forget what had upset me and laps back to my previous dietary habits? It is easier to be anti-cat for allergy reasons than for ethical reasons. Ethics don’t cause itchy eyes.

I suppose it seems odd to mention religion in what is ultimately a context of gardening, but consider this: it is easier to pick up the work of a single garden writer and believe their opinions to be the One and Only Truth than it is to read across the spectrum and seek a balance between many worthy opinions. The former offers a comfortable set of instructions - just live by the rules x, y and z, and paralysis is avoided! All of one's actions are Good, and the objectives of one's actions are clear! By contrast, finding one's own way is a lonesome journey to destinations unknown.

Religion interests me greatly from an observer's perspective. I am an atheist, but not only in the anti-religion sense of the word. I eschew, or attempt to eschew, any belief that is not grounded in fact. If an opinion is wrapped in passion, I try to become wary of it, because once a fact has been swaddled in emotional conviction, a person becomes protective of that fact, when instead she should be always open to challenges that might prove the basis of her conviction to be incorrect.

On various environmental and farming issues, I see people at the opposing ends of the spectrum marinating in their convictions to a degree that smells like religion. These are the native-plant enthusiasts who mourn at the sight of queen Anne's lace on a Massachusetts roadside, the horticultural industry professionals who don't want their business turned on its ear, and the kind-hearted gardeners who get testy when told that their burning bush is a threat to wild areas - so very much like the horse lovers who are unwilling to scrutinize possible institutionalized problems because to do so they would implicate themselves, too.

I try not to fall into religious thinking, but I am afraid I am human. As scientific as I would like to be, sometimes I feel that depending on what I read I emerge from one gravity well of belief just to fall into another; and then realizing I have done so, I plug my ears, stop reading, stop educating myself, and lapse into forgetfulness. My gardening resolution for the new year is to stop flailing about like this, and to find a middle way.