The Couple Who Planted an Orchard in Detroit

In 2009, Mark and Olivia Covington stood on Hobart Street in Detroit's east side, surrounded by abandoned lots choked with waist-high weeds and crumbling foundations. The housing crash had gutted their neighborhood. Families had fled. City services had all but vanished. Every reasonable voice said get out while you can.

Instead, they bought the vacant lot next door for three hundred dollars.

Then another. Then another. While neighbors loaded U-Hauls, the Covingtons planted apple trees, raised garden beds, and put in rows of collard greens and tomatoes. Friends thought they had lost their minds. You do not invest in a place everyone else is abandoning. You do not plant fruit trees that take years to bear in a neighborhood that might not last the winter.

But Mark kept digging. "Somebody has to believe this block has a future," he said.