Moonrise Picnic Signup, Plum Street Garden, Secret Bakery Pop-up
#89: Summer Happenings @ Featherstone Garden
Welcome to Featherstone’s Garden Happenings Newsletter. We will share a rotating variety of garden updates: from farm fresh subscriptions, community partners, Detroit spotlight features & more. As a subscriber, you will be the first to know about our Garden Happenings. If you’re not a newsletter subscriber but would like to be, click below to signup.
Be the first to visit and watch the moonrise at our new downtown garden on Plum Street!
Join us for our first downtown event, a Moonrise Picnic on Thursday September 7th from 8pm-12am. Enjoy a farm-to-table meal in the beautiful new garden we have been working to build since this past January! We know it’s a little late in the evening, but there is something magical about watching the moonrise while eating yummy treats and vibing to cool jams in a field of sunflowers.
Welcome to Featherstone Garden on Plum Street!
By: Annie Hakim, Grower and Co-Owner at Featherstone
We have been working on activating our new location on Plum Street since January-organically mitigating weed pressure, amending the soil, and naturally growing thousands of vegetables and flowers from seed.
I just now feel like the space is finally coming together.
Sometimes I wonder if working very early mornings and very late nights is worth it. We had finally gotten to a place at our Lakepointe Street garden where we had built a little sustainable business. Instead of riding that wave for a bit, I dumped my savings, mind, body, and heart into one of the greatest opportunities of my life, re-activating an overgrown garden in Downtown Detroit. I am proud and fulfilled by all the hard work it took to slowly bring that garden back to life.
MGM owns the space, and has been a valuable partner in supporting our vision for reactivation. When we moved in, the greenhouse was full of weeds as tall as me (ok, maybe 5-foot-nothing isn’t that tall). We also started the process of organically killing back weeds in a field that has been re-seeding some extremely hardy thistle for over three years.
7 years of working nearly everyday, over 20,000 pounds of organic produce, countless garden pests and beneficial insects, and 5 farm cats later, I find myself operating two farms, servicing ten local restaurants, and hosting a weekly farmstand in a city that I love. My dream to create beautiful, healthy and productive urban ecosystems that can be shared with my community is slowly coming to life.
Many thanks to the people who helped make this journey and both of our gardens possible: my business partner Aaron Smith, my husband and best friend of 18 years Greg Kort, my parents Tom and Karen Hakim, my dear friends Barney Theisen, Sara Thornton, Beckie Themer, Lee DeVito, Mel Jackson, Joshua Arntson, Susan Dundon, Renee Sandoval, Twiana Odom, Ame De Real, and the awesome teams from Motor City Grounds Crew, and Bees in the D. Thank you to everyone else that has supported and believed in our projects along the way: family members, neighbors, chefs, customers, volunteers.
As we continue to work on our Downtown garden, I am happy to watch our original garden and home base (in MorningSide on Lakepoite Street) grow into a space that is welcomed and embraced by a lovely neighborhood. Please continue to visit us at our Eastside garden. Don’t forget our farmstand is on Wedneday from 12-5pm at 4178 Lakepointe Street!
This September we are excited to finally welcome you our downtown garden on Plum Street. Stay tuned for upcoming events: picnics, foodtrucks, music, a downtown farmstand, educational workshops and more.
I hope you’ll consider joining us for our Plum Street Garden kickoff event: a Moonrise Picnic hosted by the creative and talented Ame De Real, a new team member that joined us this season. We are very fortunate to have her around (she is also a mushroom farmer, so get ready for some delicious Featherstone mushrooms starting this winter).
Hope to see you all soon!
Peace, love, cats, and plants,
Annie
Stop by our pop-up at the Secret Bakery in Ferndale: Saturday 8/26 from 9am-2pm
Secret Bakery Address: 821 Livernois St, Ferndale, MI 48220
Check out our weekend pop-up menu below.
Thanks for reading!
For more about our garden, check out our website and follow us on instagram (@featherstone.garden). Feel free to email us or comment below.
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Have a great week,
Annie, Aaron, Twiana, Ame
+ Chili, Bean, Fig and Olive (our farm cats ₍˄·͈༝·͈˄₎◞ ₍˄·͈༝·͈˄₎◞₍˄·͈༝·͈˄₎◞ ₍˄·͈༝·͈˄₎◞)
