St. Joe’s Plows Ahead with Local Food
Head north on Hewitt Road from Washtenaw Avenue, past Eastern Michigan’s Rynearson Stadium to the edge of the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital campus. Off to the right is a plot of land that the health provider is now returning to a previous use – farming.
Hank Beekley with his team of draft horses – a Belgian and a Shire – disks the field. The hospital building is visible in the background. The view is roughly to the northwest. (Photos by the writer.)
The centerpiece of the current effort is a 30 x 96-foot hoop house, which began construction on Monday. It will be joined by a second hoop house later in the summer, and plans call for a dozen of the structures to be built in the coming years.
The vegetables grown on the plot will be used in the hospital cafeteria and patient meals, and sold at a farmers market, with excess donated to Food Gatherers.
On Monday and again on Wednesday this week, Hank Beekley and his team of draft horses helped with the effort to transform about an acre of St. Joseph’s 356-acre campus in Superior Township to productive farming.
Tuesday was an off day for the horses – wet conditions were the key factor. But Beekley himself was there on Tuesday, along with other volunteers and St. Joseph’s staff to help build the first hoop house, which was already off to a good start based on Monday’s work. [Full Story]