The Secret Garden is a new project by Mimi, the same person behind the popular Shakshooka nomadic farmers market. She originally started the project last year but shifted it to full gear around a month ago and I passed by yesterday to check the place out and left extremely impressed.
The Secret Garden simply put is an urban community garden. Mimi got permission from the municipality to occupy part of a public garden in Salmiya and setup planting stations so that people and children could come and grow their own vegetables, herbs and fruits. Majority of the garden was built using recycled material and they even have their own compost pit which they’ve started filling up in hopes of it being ready for next year.
Every Saturday the community is encouraged to come by the garden from 9AM till sundown to either plant, paint, build or just socialize. Mimi has some great plans for the future including possibly turning the garden into the permanent spot for the weekly Shakshooka farmers market, having gardening workshops and even hold film screenings in the garden.
I’ll be posting about The Secret Garden every weekend with the rest of the weekend events to keep everyone posted on whats taking place there so stay tuned. For now you can check out more pictures of the garden by following @mimikuwait on instagram or the hashtag #thesecretgardenproject
22 replies on “The Secret Garden Project”
About time this country had a community garden. This Mimi is quickly turning out to be Kuwait’s answer to Alice Waters. Love her. Thanks Mark!
Progress!
Alice Waters!!! That hit home man! thank you!!!
Thought you might know her. She’s a great woman.
Keep up the good work! The world could really use more people like you and her.
This is great! I hope it catches on and can be expanded into other areas!
I love that she JUST DOES IT.
Hahaha!! Just like Nike! We did it, Mom, Yusra, Waleed, Kuwait Healthy Living, the list goes on! Please pass by, we are in your hood.
Well I guess it’s not a secret anymore…
Where exactly is it. I would love to go and plant. Who can plant? Anyone?
map is linked to the post, it’s on Baghdad street
Interesting, thanks for keeping us updated Mark!
This is a great idea! I was part of a community garden in Compton, until this guy Vic conspired to shut it down. Hopefully that won’t happen here.
ok will someone PLEASE tell me what is “Shakshooka”? thank you
It’s a DELICIOUS egg dish that is really popular in North Africa and Israel. So good, you need to give it a try sometime.
It’s also the name of the farmer’s market Mimi created that takes place once a month in Kuwait City. Wait, is it monthly or bi-monthly? I forgot, look it up.
I’ve been following the secret garden from mimi’s instagram account and i’ve loved the idea from the start.
Great job Mimi ! hope you can inspire more people to do more wonderful things.
Kuwaiti or expat? since yknow shakshooka seems pretty exclusive? i hope this is an inititiative that anyone can afford. if its something only the hoity toits can do – then nothing really changes in this country
You think Shakshooka is exclusive? It’s obvious you have no idea what shakshooka is nor have you ever visited one of their setups.
Top initiative, this one. Hope it runs for long.
How do we get in touch with Mimi? We need something like this in Abu Halifa. I’d love to help.
Is it still going on
What’s the location
The last post was 2014
Please add me to your blog’s mailing list.
Where is your garden? and when is that Gardening Today from 3-5 p.m taking place? I mean what date? and how often would you teach us gardening???? I love that and would be very interested.
I have a small garden back home and would like to learn to garden it.
Thank you
Looking forward to visiting your Secret Garden when i come down in July 2016.
It’s heartbreaking and unfortunate that the Secret Garden has been completely demolished… Mimi is working on rebuilding it with the help of voulenteers. Follow her story on Instagram or Snapchat for updates @mimikuwait