DETROIT LIVES! has a nice relationship with the Georgia Street Community Collective and their community garden to support green-ifying this city of ours.

Mark “Cub” Covington, head honcho of the collective on the east side, got laid off in April of 2008 and started the Georgia Street Community Garden as a result. It all started one morning when he walked outside to a vacant lot near his house and started picking up some trash.  Slowly the place started looking a bit better, and before too long Mark tried his hand at planting some vegetables and flowers in the area.  The plants grew.  He even ate them that summer and had neighbors in the area pick whatever they liked in the garden.

Word spread around town and in the neighborhood. Before too long the garden was growing with other people and organizations getting involved.  Mark was teaching kids how to plant flowers, having volunteers come to till the land and expanding the garden to include a fruit orchard.  Then another garden was created with corn and potatoes three blocks down the street from the original garden. The place kept growing– literally and figuratively. And still is!

Before too long, the collective became a non-profit and is now thriving in the neighborhood.  A community center is being built and the general store that was once a fixture in the community at the corner of Vinton and Georgia Street is being rehabbed.  Soon it will house a general store and give residents in the area a healthy alternative selling fresh sandwiches and such made with stuff from the garden.

DETROIT LIVES! over the last couple years has been involved with the collective and takes pride in being a part of such strong neighborhood and community development projects.  Check out Mark’s site for the garden here and come out for a strawberry or three this summer.

See Mark featured in a DL! documentary titled “The Farmer and the Philosopher”: