ROOFTOP ROOTS

Jesse Yurow has spent his summer vacation on the roof of The North Campus Diner.

Yurow, the Student Government Association's agriculture and natural resources legislator, and a number of other students and Dining Services staff members are expanding a little-known community garden project on the roof of The Diner that can be seen from the windows of the Ellicott Community dorms.

The garden, which is scattered around the roof in about two dozen planters, is a work in progress. Popping up among the plants are brown brick walls and pieces of heating and cooling equipment. The floor is not grass or dirt but gray stone.

The garden now includes peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, okra, cucumbers and squash, plus such herbs as oregano, sage, dill and rosemary, Yurow said, and students can even find an edible flower atop the dining hall roof. All are available free to any student who wanders up there, he said.

Although many of the plants on the roof are new — funded by a $2,500 grant the SGA provided in April — the roof garden was started several years ago by Greg Thompson, the Dining Services assistant director responsible for its facilities and maintenance.

Thompson started the garden by himself, without university funding, planting only a few herbs — now the first plant you come across when you step onto the roof — that were used in catering dishes, but he had always hoped to expand his project.

"It's gonna take a little bit of a cost because I want to purchase little fruit trees; that's the biggest thing," Thompson said in 2008. "If I have fruit trees that produce something, now I'm getting excited, you know? Because then it actually gives you something back."

But even after the space's extensive physical expansion, students still see more potential above The Diner. Dining Services has given students free reign over the entire roof, inviting them to paint, grow or decorate however they please, according to Yurow.

Although Yurow has focused mostly on the garden this summer, he said he hopes more students will get involved and enhance the space.

Lindsey Muniak, a junior government and politics and art history major who has worked with Yurow on the garden, said she would like to see it serve as a gathering place for students.

"It's a space where we can come together as a community to work collectively toward a more sustainable society," Muniak said. (the Student Government Association's agriculture and natural resources legislator

Yurow also hopes that this project can become more than just a garden.

"The vision is to have an open community space on the roof as an outlet for creative expression of all kinds from growing your own food to painting murals to organizing open mics and theatrical productions," he wrote in an e-mail.

The garden is already filling an environmental function, Yurow added. The plants on the roof are watered by run-off from the North Campus high rises, and they reduce energy burdens on the dining hall by decreasing the amount of sunlight that hits the building. The fruits, vegetables and herbs grown in the garden are also healthier and more sustainable than food from industrial farms.

Since the late spring, Yurow said he has had 30 to 50 students up on the roof to see the garden, and he thinks many others have heard about the project.

"Most don't believe it's real," Yurow said.

He believes that the oddity of growing a garden on the roof is one of the reasons people doubt his project's existence. Furthermore, Yurow said, while the thousands of undergraduates at this university are very active and involved in the university community, there are very few tangible, visible examples of student involvement.

There are other benefits to the garden, Yurow added. It gives agriculture students the opportunity to have hands-on experience with plants and soils — experience that just does not match what they could get in an indoor laboratory. Yurow also said the garden is an educational opportunity for anyone who is interesting in understanding where food comes from and how it is produced.

Students can access the roof from the basement of The Diner at the Dining Services facilities maintenance center behind the main entrance to the building. Yurow said the garden is open to all students during normal business hours.

mccarty at umdbk dot com