.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;}
According to a recent CNNMoney.com article, a rich guy wants to use the empty spaces in Detroit for farming.

John Hantz runs Hantz Financial Services Inc., which has $1.3 billion under management, and he’d like to spend $30 million of his own cash to get his urban farming idea rolling. Motor City isn’t really working anymore, so he wants to try Veggietown.

There’s no shortage of vacant land in Detroit; 40 square miles would be enough to satisfy even the most ambitious young Iowa farmer. But don’t think of Iowa-style farming with long fields and big tractors, the article says.

Hantz wants to develop “pods” of land producing crops such as peaches, berries, plums, nectarines, exotic greens, lettuce and heirloom tomatoes. Customers will saunter through, selecting their couldn’t-be-fresher purchases right off the plant.

So the project has everything you need in a grandiose scheme – surprising location, aggressive business plan, a whiff of desperation. As a bonus, it offers the key element for a James Bond film: an over-the-top, filthy-rich hero out to change the world.

Now they need to find lots and lots of people like Chris Diebel, Tim Diebel and Mike Simonson. Here in the depths of a miserable winter, let’s take a vicarious return to their experiences last summer.

Chris Diebel signed up last year for the premier season of the Downtown Community Garden at Southeast Sixth Street and Scott Avenue, and “had a blast,” he says.

The city offered garden spots at no cost and provided water, mulch and tools. Diebel and his fellow gardeners planted crops, pulled weeds and harvested the results, and in the process got to know one another.

They even had a regular Sunday night picnic, although another commitment kept Diebel from those events.

“It really is a neighborhood,” said Diebel, who lives a few blocks from the garden in a downtown condominium unit. “I think that’s cool; it’s one more thing that brings us all together.”

Before or after work at Orchestrate Management & Associates, he would jog over to his 8-foot-by-14-foot piece of ground, do a little gardening and walk back home. Surrounded now by snow and ice, “I can’t wait to do it again,” he said.

His dad takes a different approach to enjoying nature’s bounty. Tim Diebel belonged to not one but two food cooperatives last summer.

Inspired by reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” the senior minister at First Christian Church signed up for LT Organic Farm in Waukee and Turtle Farm in Grimes, paying a flat one-season fee to each.

It’s not cheap. “We got our money’s worth in terms of volume,” Diebel said with a laugh. “All of this necessitated buying a freezer.”

Turtle Farm was willing to deliver vegetables to his home south of Gray’s Lake, but Diebel made the 30-minute drive to Grimes every Friday afternoon. “I get a kick out of going to the farm,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mike Simonson was trying out his very own urban garden in a 10-foot-by-100-foot strip of land previously covered by asphalt.

Simonson lives south of Grand Avenue in a spot too shady for gardening, and when he moved his business, Simonson Associates Inc., into the former car dealership building at 1717 Ingersoll Ave., he thought, “Wow, I can do a garden!”

He brought in compost and planted heirloom seeds from Seed Savers Exchange Inc. in Decorah.

As Simonson worked in his garden at the end of the day or on Saturday, “a lot of people would stop and chat,” he reports. The people from his office would harvest some produce before going home.

Sounding like a more reasonable version of Detroit’s John Hantz, Simonson said: “There are enough empty lots; the city should allow people to plant gardens. It’s a shame to waste all this space.”

There. Now you have some warm thoughts that should last until – well, until you glance out the window.