Groundbreaking!

Thanks to all of our volunteers for coming out to the DHC this saturday and braving the chilly wind for a bit of digging, brick cleaning/ sorting and general tidying up.

Check back for more updates soon and contact us if you are interested in volunteering. 

February Garden Update

Detroit Heirloom Conservatory continues to make progress towards the 2012 growing season. In the past few weeks we have ordered and received our seeds for this season, finalized the design of our garden, and our currently undertaking the preparations to start constructing the space. In just a few minutes we are going to head over and layout measurements on the site to prepare for digging.

We will be holding a groundbreaking ceremony and volunteer dig on Saturday, March 10th, 2012 at 11:00 am. All are welcome. As you can see in the renderings we will have terraced raised beds opposite a mini amphitheater with a retaining wall dividing the space. Since we don't have a backhoe, the volunteer dig will allow us to displace the dirt on the north side of the lot to help create the terrace and amphitheater features. We plan to use the sunken space to host a variety of educational programs about seed cultivation and preservation. We hope this space will also be used by our neighbors for community activities. We plan to work with existing organizations to plan a number of events in the spring, summer and fall of 2012. These may include theater performances, music, poetry readings and community meetings or gatherings, but we are open to your suggestions as well. We hope you can come out and lend a hand (or shovel) on March 10th. 

We have also been busy launching our online identity. You now can visit Detroit Heirloom Conservatory on facebook, twitter and at our new web address: www.detroitheirloomconservatory.org

Once we start official construction on March 10th, there will be plenty of opportunities to help out if you want. We are going to try to post our volunteer schedule to our facebook page and twitter feed, so check there. We will also continue to update the website with pictures and documentation of the garden, as well as information seedlings, fruit and seeds we will be offering later in the season.

We are just getting started and look forward to bringing you more soon.

-The Detroit Heirloom Conservatory Team

 

Our first post...Welcome! We thought we might start out with a bit of background information about who we are and what the Conservatory is all about.


The Detroit Heirloom Conservatory began in 2011 as a collaborative venture between Simeon Heyer, Amy Weiks and Gabriel Craig. As craftspeople by trade, Amy and Gabriel have always been interested in the self-sufficiency and empowerment offered by handwork, and in recent years this led to an interest in organic heirloom gardening. Of course craft is also the province of connoisseurship and, as practiced today, a certain amount of romantic preservationism. This interest developed into the fledgling project, Detroit Heirloom Conservatory. When Amy and Gabriel met Simeon Heyer in 2010, and realized there was a shared a passion for historical preservation, urban gardening and bio-diversity the project began to take on a life of its own.


In the 2011 Wayne County tax auction we bought a plot of land in North Corktown, just North of I-75 on Harrison St. Currently, we are developing a design for the garden in collaboration with local lanscape architect Erin Kelly. In our first year we plan to exclusively grow tomatoes, this being a manageable starting point from which to expand. Our goal is to create a dynamic space that serves both seasoned urban farmers and novice growers by providing resources to facilitate heirloom vegetable cultivation in the city and beyond. To that end the Detroit Heirloom Conservatory is service oriented garden centered around heirloom vegetable cultivation, preservation and seed dissemination. It is also our goal to be inviting to the immediate neighborhood community. Community gardens need to serve community to be effective and relavent. 


We hope to empower people through food production, while also promoting connoisseurship, which we see a natural outgrowth of the self-sufficiency that making and growing things provides. We believe an empowered self-sufficient urban farmer or gardener should have the freedom to cultivate whatever vegetables they choose. However, their choices are often dictated by commercial seed companies rather than personal preference. The Detroit Heirloom Conservatory seeks to facilitate an agricultural diversity that reflects the ethnic and cultural diversity of the city of Detroit. We also want to contribute to the resistance of mono-culture farming in a mono-industry city.

That is our premise. We are quite aware that we aim to serve a niche market, but with so many gardens and farms in the city we want to contribute to an already existing network and facilitate the amazing work of others. We are very open at this point in the project. We are taking volunteers and invite anyone who is interested to become involved. If you are interested please email gabriel.craig@gmail.com. 


Our immediate plans are to design and build the garden for the 2012 growing season. We have plans to conduct stakeholder analysis by surveying and canvasing other gardens and farms in the city to determine how we can shape our programming to fit their needs. If you are a garden/farm owner/worker please contact simeonheyer@gmail.com with your suggestions. 


Right now we are building our website and online presence, this website being a central component. We also have a facebook page which you can view here. We are working on a twitter feeds. There will be links in the sidebar shortly if there are not there already. We are working with acclaimed graphic designer Joshua Levi on our identity and branding, and hope to be a well designed venture in the not too distant future. 


We currently are considering how to construct and implement seed shares and memberships to the Conservatory as well as when, where and how to sell the tomatoes we grow. If you have thoughts or suggestions email us or comment below.


That's all for now. Check out these pictures of the garden site. It overlooks the Depot, The Bridge, and Downtown. 


More soon,
-The Detroit Heirloom Conservatory Team