Work begins on Detroit's newest community garden

Posted: 12:28 p.m. May 27, 201

By JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

Detroit’s newest community garden broke ground this morning, with the backing of the Triscuit cracker brand and the efforts of singer-songwriter Taja Sevelle.

More elaborate that most of Detroit’s hundreds of community gardens, the 40-by-60-foot raised-bed garden on the southwest corner of Second and Euclid north of New Center is the latest project by the non-profit Urban Farming, a Detroit-based advocacy group founded by Sevelle and backed by Kraft Foods, the corporate owner of Triscuit.

This newest garden cost about $20,000 to set up, Sevelle said today, and uses a raised bed – a wooden box into which new soil and compost are imported. Neighborhood volunteers will work the garden, and the vegetables grown there will be free to the community.

Sevelle said the garden plot is one of several hundred that her Urban Farming organization will sponsor this year across America with Triscuit’s help.

“Our goal is to get rid of hunger in our generation,” she told about 50 people attending the planting ceremony.

Al Fields, Mayor Dave Bing’s executive overseeing planning, said the new garden “showcases the good things that are going on in the city of Detroit.”

Contact JOHN GALLAGHER : 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com