Have you ever been to an urban farm? On Sunday, Travis and I visited an urban farm for the first time. We took the kids to a Harvest Festival at D-Town Farms in Detroit. It’s located on 14027 W. Outer Drive at Plymouth and W. Chicago.
The weekend of September 21-22, D-Town Farm hosted its 13th annual Harvest Festival. I had wanted to go to last year’s event, but we weren’t able to go because of a prior commitment we had. I was excited to finally have the chance to visit D-Town Farm and learn more about an urban farm.
For 2.5 hours, we forgot we were in the city. It was refreshing and reminded me a little bit of back home.
Being from a small Southern city, I didn’t see urban farming in Tennessee. I saw rural farms, though! Plenty of those. I remember when I was younger my mom would drive down back roads to take the “scenic route” and we’d pass fields of cows and many farms.
It’s so different now that I live in Metro Detroit because it’s a larger city. In fact, now that I think about it, I haven’t seen a cow in four years! Lol!
“Last year Keep Growing Detroit supported a record breaking 1,603 Detroit urban gardens and farms. These gardens and farms helped 24,362 residents grow and connect to an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables.”
Quote from www.detroitagriculture.net
I know urban farming isn’t a new concept because it’s been around for many years. You can go on YouTube and find thousands of videos on urban gardening and urban farming if you’d like to learn more about it.
A few weeks ago, I was watching a cool video about urban gardening and the documentary was from the 80s. I guess that just proves urban gardening and farming has been around for decades. Anyway, this video was fascinating to me because this woman had turned her small backyard into this magnificent garden.
Look at this video from TED Talks.
Devita Davison talks about “how urban agriculture is transforming Detroit.” Davison explains how the open lands, fertile soil, and proximity to water serve as great advantages for urban farming in Detroit.
According to detroitagriculture.net, last year Keep Growin Detroit supported a record-breaking 1,603 Detroit urban gardens and farms. “These aren’t plots of land where we’re just growing tomatoes and carrots, either,” Ms. Davison explains in the video.
“You understand urban agriculture in Detroit is all about community because we grow together. So these spaces are spaces of conviviality. These spaces are places where we’re building social cohesion as well as providing healthy fresh food to our friends, our families, and our neighbors.”
This concept of urban farming fascinates us. We first learned about urban gardening and urban farming about two years after we moved to Metro Detroit.
Travis is also from a small area. He grew up in a very small rural town in Illinois where the city limit is one square mile. Travis grew up seeing corn and soybean farms when he was younger. Population 800– VERY small town.
And he LOVES farming so when he discovered urban farming in Detroit, he was amazed! He said he thinks urban farming is a great resource for local communities and he’d love to try it, too!
Needless to say, we were very excited to visit D-Town Farm in Detroit.
Hosted by the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, the Harvest Festival was a 2-day event. We paid a $10 donation for our admission.
We attended the festival on Sunday afternoon toward the closing of the event. We missed the main festivities, but we still had a great time listening to live music, playing a game of Double Dutch, and touring D-Town Farms. It’s a Fall event we will definitely attend again next year!
Here are a few more photos of our visit to D-Town Farm.
Zhen was very excited to give it a try.
YOU’RE STILL HERE? 🙂
If you made it this far into my post, THANK YOU for reading and viewing my photographs! I know this post featured more images than I normally post. I just had a hard time narrowing down which photos to share. Would you believe I took about 175 photographs?!
Click HERE to learn more about D-Town Farm.
Hope you enjoyed this post. Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think! xoxo Jennifer
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- Visiting a Detroit Urban Farm: D-Town Farm
All photographs are courtesy of Jennifer Hamra for Good Life Detroit.