By Stacy Jones

Jesse Yurow (left) used a student government grant to help revive a rooftop garden on North Campus Diner started by Greg Thompson, assistant director for dining facilities.

The lush rooftop garden on the North Campus Diner for the last couple of summers has been harvested and reduced to a drab and lifeless cement lot right around the time students returned to campus.

Not anymore. This month, as part of an environmental science and technology major’s efforts to expand the garden, new raspberry bushes are producing berries begging to be plucked off.

With the help of a $2,500 grant from the Student Government Association, Jesse Yurow spent the summer planting and tending rows of okra, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers and eggplants, as well as planning a long-term future for the garden.

“The vision is for it to transcend from it just being my summer project to being a community rooftop garden that inspires people,” says Yurow, who’s also been organizing the fall farmer’s markets at Hornbake Plaza.

Flowering vines take over trellises made from wooden shipping pallets.

Greg Thompson, assistant director for dining facilities, kept the garden small and tended it alone until he met Yurow at an Earth Day event.

“I want to change it to something beautiful,” Thompson says, “I don’t want it to just be an ugly roof.”

Wooden shipping pallets have become planting boxes, Pepsi syrup barrels have been collecting rain waters, milk crates serve as trellises and metal recycling bins hold azaleas, four o’clocks and morning glories.

He even set up a small irrigation system for the climbing vines by using PVC piping to catch steam as it condenses and direct it into his plant containers.

In the future, he says he’d like to add dwarf fruit trees, predicting that technicians do work on the roof would appreciate the shade and prospect of a fresh snack.

He stresses that the garden belongs to students and says that anyone who visits the garden is free to take home some of the vegetables.

Since Yurow put in most of the work this year, Thompson left it up to him to decide who gets to eat the crops. Yurow has eaten some of the produce himself, shared with friends and diner employees, and sent the rest to the Maryland Food Co-op, where the herbs and vegetables have made appearances in hot lunches during the summer.

He and Thompson are enthusiastic about the arrival of “Caroline,” a raspberry plant developed in part by small fruits breeder and biotechnologist Harry Swartz, associate professor in the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture. It’s supposed to be able to survive the cooler temperatures that fall brings.

“Usually by the time students move back into these dorms, all the plants up here are on their way out, and it’s hard to get convince them that there’s even a garden up here,” Thompson says.

Yurow has enjoyed bringing more plant life to the roof of the Diner, but his impending graduation in May is motivating him to recruit other green-thumbed students. He’s been asking resident advisers in nearby residence halls to organize student groups interested in maintaining the space.

“It’s great because it requires that we become involved in keeping this garden healthy and growing,” he says. “It teaches you a lot about community involvement and urban sustainability.”