*** NOTE: WE HAVE A NEW TEXT ALERT NUMBER! PLEASE READ BELOW! ***
TEXT ALERTS FROM PEOPLE FOR PALMER PARK!

Will tonight’s bike ride be cancelled due to rain?
Is the ground too wet this week for yoga or t’ai chi?
Now you can receive instant updates for our recreation programs and events, in text form RIGHT ON YOUR PHONE.

We have a new number for our text alerts. This is due to an exciting upgrade to a more robust system with better capabilities. But it does mean we need you to sign up again at the new number. 

INSTRUCTIONS:
(This is a one time setup and will only take a moment...)

Text “PalmerPark” to the number 888-833-7575.
No quotes, no spaces. It is not caps sensitive. Now SEND.

You will receive a reply that looks something like this:

Welcome!
Msg&Data rates may apply.
Get 10msg/mos of Park Alerts.
Reply HELP for help, STOP to OptOut. 8883483778

Thank you for joining PFPP's PalmerPark keyword group! Please reply with your First Name. Txt STOP to OptOut


Reply with your first name only.
You will receive next msg like this:

Thank you for providing us with your First Name. Please provide your Email for further correspondence.

If you choose to provide your email, you will receive next msg like this:

Thank you! Your email provides us another way to keep you informed about Palmer Park.


Then you're all set!
ALL text alerts will be People for Palmer Park related (weather updates for recreation programs, event reminders), Not spam. Charges may apply, check your individual cellular/data plan.

Visit Palmer Park Farmers Market on Facebook and Instagram.In partnership with Eastern Market, Detroit Community Markets and the City of Detroit Parks & Recreation Department, join us each Wednesday at this lovely local market for farm fresh fruits and vegetables, grass-fed meat, cooking demos with Chef Mike, desserts and baked goods and bath/body/personal care items.

As part of a collaboration with Eastern Market and the City of Detroit, we are proud to be a part of the new Palmer Park Farmers Market which will be open every Wednesday, 4:30-7:30pm beginning July 8th through September 30th.

The Market will take place at the SW corner of 7 Mile and Woodward, at the Detroit Exploration & Nature Center. The Palmer Park Farmers Market is a member of the Detroit Community Markets and aims to make essential things accessible to the community while supporting our local growers & entrepreneurs.

Know that the market will be enforcing some very practical social distance policies to keep everyone safe.

Confirmed vendors for first market include:

• Deeply Rooted Produce
• Judella's Sweets and Treats
• McElroy Farms
• Extravagant Organics
• Detroit Garden Girl
• Pastry Luv
• Eastern Market
• CiCi's Seamoss

WE NEED VOLUNTEERS
To sign up: https://forms.gle/uHdfdQhzmjT2A7qC6

For more information and to follow the Market updates throughout the summer:

Facebook + Instagram: @PalmerParkFarmersMarket
Email: PalmerParkFarmersMarket@gmail.com

Powered by Eastern Market, Detroit Community Markets, City of Detroit Parks & Recreation Department and People for Palmer Park.

​"The Garden Blog: A Family Grows in Detroit" will follow one of our new garden bed renters and her family on their first bed-rental experience this season at Palmer Park.

Beautiful Pests
​By Amy Kuras

Because of my work schedule and my kids’ schedule, my garden time often comes late in the day, sometimes late enough that I’m racing dusk to get my chores done. It’s a very peaceful time to be there – golden light on the meadow, kids joyfully shrieking through the splash park, and the normal bustle of this busy city oasis beginning to slowly wind down. 

A few weeks ago, I was puttering around in the garden when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I was scared at first, fearing a mean dog, but it was instead something so much better -- a deer! looking for food in the wild meadow that surrounds the garden. I know some people hate deer, because they are pests and will clean out months of hard garden work with a few minutes of munching –and believe me, I put the deer netting we were offered on my raised bed just like everyone else did. 

But for me, a deer sighting is magical. I grew up in the city, and I never saw a deer until I was 24 and working as a reporter on Grosse Ile, a small island in the Detroit River. It’s still exciting and rare for me to spot them, and I relish their grace and loveliness and intelligent soft eyes. I knew they lived in the park, but I’ve hardly ever seen one. This time, there were two. 

I haven’t been this close to one of these beauties. I was worried they might challenge me for my plants or something (again, city kid, I’m completely unfamiliar with wildlife, but ask me about cats!) but instead one of them, a female, kept munching milkweed and tall grass just outside the clearing of the garden area. Every now and again we’d look at each other for a few minutes, me delighted, her wary. She’d stare and then, flipping her tail like an irritated cat, she’d go back to her meal and I’d go back to my weeding. 
​
Since we started this garden project, I keep thinking about the idea of something sparking joy. The garden has been an unalloyed spark of joy for me on many levels. And that night, it was the joy of communing with a wild and beautiful creature, both of us engaging in our evening chores. It’s one of the things I hope I always remember, and one of the many gifts from the garden I’ve already received. 

​Amy Kuras is Research and Policy Program Manager for Detroit Food Policy Council and member of People for Palmer Park.

​"The Garden Blog: A Family Grows in Detroit" will follow one of our new garden bed renters and her family on their first bed-rental experience this season at Palmer Park.

We have harvest!!
By Amy Kuras

One thing I have learned about gardening is that a lot can happen in a little time, and sometimes there’s a lot of waiting and then bursts of frenzied activity.

​Case in point: We put in our cold crops in late April. And we waited, and waited, and worried about what to do when it was time for the hot crops to be planted when the cold crops hadn’t even begun to really take off yet. Thanks to some great advice from Molly and some surprisingly meticulous garden planning from me (let’s just say “meticulous” isn’t a character trait one typically associates with me) I figured out how to find good spots for the hot crops without crowding out the cold crops. So we planted, and watered, and hoped.  That was May 18, the first day the garden officially opened.

We had a long-standing plan to head to DC and Maryland for a family reunion the following weekend, because it was Memorial Day. I slogged through the mud to look over the garden the day we left, May 23, and was happy to see a little bit of growth in just the five days since we’d planted. We got back late the night of Memorial Day (May 27) and finally moseyed over to check the garden on Tuesday evening.

Well. Mother Nature apparently held quite a Memorial Day party because things have just exploded. The lettuce plants doubled in size, the band of lettuce seeds needed a third thinning because the seedlings were all crowding each other out, the peas and broccoli grew a good couple inches, and beans and cucumber seedlings were starting to push above ground. The beets and carrots are starting to look well established, too. Teaches me to come to the garden without anything to bring home a harvest -- I pulled up the deer netting, had my husband hold out his shirt, and began piling lettuce into it!

It’s amazing what a little sun, a lot of rain, and good soil can do.

However, not all is perfection. I’d planted Brussels sprouts down the middle of the bed, because they take a long time to mature. Unfortunately, half of them look great but half have died, as have some of my kale plants and all of my collards. It’s disappointing, but realistically I’m the only one in my family who would have eaten a bunch of it anyway. More room for juicy tomatoes and snappy beans, right?

​Amy Kuras is Research and Policy Program Manager for Detroit Food Policy Council and member of People for Palmer Park.

​"The Garden Blog: A Family Grows in Detroit" will follow one of our new garden bed renters and her family on their first bed-rental experience this season at Palmer Park.

The garden is open!
By Amy Kuras

This past weekend, I and all my fellow Palmer Park gardeners kicked off the season in style. On a day that started out pouring rain and ended up sunny, warm and beautiful, we planted our beds, helped a contingent of volunteers from Home Depot spread wood chips, and probably ran our site farmer, Molly Leebove, ragged with all our questions.

The gardeners are as diverse as the people who use Palmer Park for any number of things; families,
singles, and groups like Yoganic Flow and GirlTrek. Some of us are experienced gardeners, some are
brand new, and we’re planting everything from arugula to zucchini.

For my family and I, this garden represents something we’ve long hoped for in a place we already love.
When my husband Paul and I moved into our house in Greenacres 17 years ago, I immediately planted a
vegetable garden and learned how amazing food can taste when it was picked mere minutes before
hitting your plate. I kept it up for a few years, but lost my mojo when my daughter Maggie (who now
goes by Max) came along in 2004 and when my son Will arrived in 2008. By the time I was thinking I
might want to start up again, the big maple tree in our backyard had grown enough to keep the whole
yard in shade for almost all of the day. I managed to eke out a few tomatoes and get an herb garden
going, but generally any really productive growing was not happening.

When I was a kid, I remember my dad belonging to a community garden, where you could rent a bed for
the summer. I work for the Detroit Food Policy Council, which has close ties with the urban agriculture
community, but my inquiries about such a thing here in Detroit came up empty. I’d resigned myself to
getting my fresh seasonal veggies at the farmers market. Then, late last year I heard about the Rent A
Bed program. To say I was excited is an understatement. We already love Palmer Park and spend a lot of
time at the splash park and on the trails when the weather is nice. I attended the annual meeting to find
out more and signed up on the spot!
​
We joined Keep Growing Detroit’s Garden Resource Program, took their basic gardening class, and Molly
kindly let us start planting all our cold crops early. At our kick-off meeting in mid-May, I dragged my kids
over to see the bed. “WE HAVE BABIES!!!” I cheered, seeing the band of lettuce seeds germinating into
little microrgreens and the peas Will had planted slowly unfurling themselves toward the sun. This was,
to my teen and tween, about the most embarrassing thing a person has ever done, but I didn’t care. We
were even able to harvest some lettuce from the plants we’d taken home from KGD and had our first
official salad from the garden (okay, with a LOT of store bought lettuce as well) at Sunday dinner.

​Amy Kuras is Research and Policy Program Manager for Detroit Food Policy Council and member of People for Palmer Park.