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ANNOUNCEMENTS
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New Lao Highland
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Friday, April 1, 2005 - Page updated at 12:33 a.m. Immigrant gardeners learning organic tricks Seven gardeners in the Chinatown International District learned a new use for beer yesterday. Slugs are attracted to the yeasty scent and can be drowned in a shallow container, without the need for pesticides. So the gardeners, who are older immigrants, made beer traps during a "Green Gardening" program, sponsored by Seattle Public Utilities. The city has promoted organic gardens for a dozen years and has taken its road show to other non-English-speaking groups. What's distinctive about the International District's Danny Woo Gardens is that many of its 70 cultivators depend on their plots as a significant food source, said garden manager Danny Stratten. He guesses about one-fourth use chemicals in a typical growing season. He hopes that in a few years, the Woo gardeners will be prepared to go 100 percent organic. The city's neighborhood P-Patches already ban pesticides. The Woo garden, on a ridge near Interstate 5, is divided into four terraces, reducing the odds of toxic runoff into storm drains and Puget Sound. Gardening instructors worry more about health — the immigrants generally cannot read pesticide labels and risk exposure to hands and face. As educator Katie Atkins slipped on a glove yesterday, the workshop resembled high-school sex education. Use protection, but abstinence is best. She explained the distinctions among "CAUTION," "WARNING" and "DANGER" on pesticide labels, as gardeners hurriedly wrote Chinese characters for the Environmental Protection Agency's three hazard categories. They sat at two tables, one for Mandarin speakers and one for Cantonese, using teenage translators from Wilderness Inner-City Leadership Development. Despite low turnout, officials hope the ideas will spread by word of mouth. Gardeners wondered what to do about radish roots that grow only a couple of inches deep in what they considered poor soil. Instructors blamed a fungus for "club root" and prescribed growing different crops until the soil recuperates. But the highlight was the beer trap, received with some skepticism. The Mandarin group said beer would attract street alcoholics, so gardener Chen Yue Mei planned to fill her trap with Sluggo, a granular chemical made in Germany. But three Cantonese gardeners said they would give beer a chance. "Even a child can make one of these," said Chen as she held a margarine tub and cut a hole where a slug would enter. Atkins reminded them to empty and refill traps every three or four days. "They seem to prefer fresh beer," she said. |
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Inter*Im Community Development Association
310 Maynard Avenue South |
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© 2005 Inter*Im Community Development Association - All
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