ypsilanti’s tour de fresh garden tour

Tomorrow evening, there’s going to be a tour of downtown Ypsi vegetable gardens and the like. Here’s a note from Amanda Edmonds, the Director of Growing Hope, the organization that put it all together:

In many communities, including Ypsilanti, barriers in access to healthy, fresh food are being overcome by people working towards strong, sustainable local food systems. Community & school gardens, urban micro-farms, local groceries, food co-ops, and farmers’ markets are some of the ways people in our community are creating opportunities for food production and healthy food access, all while supporting our local economy. The Tour de Fresh will exhibit a few of these inspirational efforts in Ypsilanti.

Sign-in begins at 5pm at our Downtown Ypsilanti Farmers’ Market (MI Ave & Hamilton), tour leaves at 5:30pm, ending with a light meal made by local gardeners! Rain or shine, all ages welcome! Requested Donation $1-20. Join us on either the driving or biking tour by calling us at 734-786-8401 or emailing info@growinghope.net to reserve your spot today!

If I don’t come down with the flu tonight, my plan is to take the tour by bike, pulling Clementine along behind me in her little chariot. (I just got back from a 4-hour meeting of the Ypsilanti 2020 Task Force and I’m all headachy and gross feeling. It could just be the result of the long meeting, but I suspect I may have picked up a bug somewhere this afternoon.) If you’ve got some time, tomorrow’s supposed to be a beautiful day, and I can’t imagine a better way to spend it than cruising around with other likeminded folks, looking at other local gardening operations. Amanda tells me the route is about 4 miles long, so it should be fairly easy going by bike. Oh, and she doesn’t mention it in her blurb here, but one of the stops is going to be the “illegal” urban chicken operation of Peter Thomason, which I’ve mentioned here on the site before. If I don’t get sick, I’ll try to get some photos up tomorrow night.