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Arts & Entertainment

How Their Gardens Grow

Residents at College Park's Attick Towers plant and harvest kitchen staples from their native lands.

Walk out the front door of the Attick Towers – on the corner of Rhode Island Avenue and Greenbelt Road – across the short parking lot, and there sits a modest, yet robust green garden the size of those boxy little backyards you see tucked behind city row houses and brownstones.

The garden is a kind of sanctuary for Chinese resident Cui Lan Ma, self-appointed chief gardener, and her compatriots who tend 13 of the garden's 16 plots, planting and harvesting cabbage, watercress and romaine lettuces, spring onion, spinach, squash, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and eggplant – all kitchen staples in their native lands.   

The Attick Towers is a public housing apartment building for seniors and disabled citizens. It opened for occupancy in 1972 and now has a diverse population of residents from countries including, Korea, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Philippines and South America.

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 Any resident with an interest in gardening can get a plot, said Attick building director Regina Stone-Mitchell, but Chinese and Korean residents have taken a particular interest. The plots are assigned as they become available, but when there are more requests than plots residents either share a plot, or enter a lottery to get one. But that's extremely rare.

Residents of Chinese and Korean origin, many of whom were already there when Stone-Mitchell became the director eight years ago, tend to be the most active and health conscious, she said.

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"When the Koreans moved in they did more than anyone else ever did," said Bob Hanna, a member of the College Park Moose Lodge #453. "Everything increased; they were more interested in it."

Hanna was community service director for the lodge back in 1996 when a group of its members erected the rustic wooden fence around the garden to spruce it up and add dimension.

"They made it more aesthetically pleasing," said Stone-Mitchell, "it defines the space."

"We wanted to do something for the Attick Towers because some of the Moose Lodge members actually lived there," Hanna added.

The grassy area on which the garden sits is owned by the Maryland Department of Transportation. Stone-Mitchell said the towers has a long-standing agreement with the Maryland DOT to let the residents use the land for a garden to benefit Attick Tower residents.

"The agreement goes way back, probably more than 20 years," said Stone-Mitchell.

Resident gardeners aren't bound by any rules or regulations. As long as what they're planting is state-law compliant, they can grow it. Many residents cultivate seeds in their apartments, and then transfer them to the garden. Mulch is provided three times a year for the residents to use. "It's truly an organic garden," said Stone-Mitchell. "I've never seen them use any pesticides."

Stone-Mitchell keeps a watchful eye over the garden. She walks through once a month just to make sure it's free of hazards. But the residents take full responsibility for the planting and harvesting.

Mornings and sunset are peak times for the gardeners. They begin planting in March and by December they've reaped at least three harvests from their crops.

"They will plant different varieties of lettuce in the spring and fall," Stone-Mitchell explained. "The interesting thing is that the residents usually plant things from their home land. It's amazing that they can grow things in the winter. They plant a winter crop and will harvest it into December. Then they let the ground rest until March. Until it gets really cold, they're out there in that garden."

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