Get Off the Grid at Detroit’s Food Field

In addition to co-founding the farm, Noah Link is also the talented caligrapher and graphic artist behind the farm’s sign posts.

Queen Anne’s lace faces Lawrence Street, at the front of Food Field.

Green Toe Gardens manages over 100 behives in backyards, schools and community gardens thoughout Detroit, including these at Food Field.

A volunteer painted salvaged windows as signs for a dinner party.

Inside a hoop house, an aquaponic system raises cat fish and blue gill. Seedlings– a mix of greens, watercress, sorrel, and celery– grow in the middle while a mix of transplants begin on top.

Calliope Spieles and her sisters took a break from visiting the baby turkeys to show GC around.

Food Field is off the grid. Solar panels provide electricity for aquaponics and other needs.

Noah Link, a founder of Food Field, pauses on a steamy Saturday in August.

“The farm has a dozen types of tomatoes, most are heirloom,” said Link, holding a yellow brandywine.

Picnic tables are used for dinner parties at Food Field. Rain collection tanks top a shipping container that is used for storage, with a bit of shade and workspace in the rear.

Neighboring homes, some abandoned, overlook rows and rows of fruit trees and vegetables including kale, collards, cabbage, peppers, and beans.

Behind Queen Anne’s lace, large homes have been divided for multi-family use. Many appear vacant.

One of several helping hands at Food Field.

Garlic hangs atop The Arc, which is available for overnights on Airbnb. Rain water is funneled into collection tanks below the roof, which are made of billboard tarp.