Comanche Nation Begins Community Garden Project
Comanche Nation Greenhouse Director Patrick Attocknie began the Comanche Nation community garden in early May with the help of the Comanche Nation Environmental Program.
He has plants sprouting, thanks to donated seeds, and a ground to be tilled as the garden is added to daily.
“Coming up is we want to put in a giant pumpkin patch for the for the kids coming in October you know well you know be different stuff coming up and also you know we have trails and we're trying to start a tea garden, a koi pond, a pollinator garden, things like that for people can come by and interact with all of our gardening things and our trails and our plants,” Attocknie said. “We can learn the names of them, the scientific name, the modern name, and the name in Comanche.”
His favorite project was creating a trellis walkway.
“I like putting these trellises, these arches like that, because something my wife and I, you know…we love to garden. We love doing this together. She's full of stuff and knowledge. And…it spilled over onto me, and it got on me, and I just love to get plants and flowers and learn about them. And see how they're going to grow, how they can help us one way or the other with our health, you know, from the inside out,” Attocknie said. “And then the other thing that my wife has taught me is the medicinal part of this planting and things you know we can all the all the things that we can benefit from, you know, the healthy plant aspects of the teas, the tinctures that you can make, you know, all everything.”
His favorite plants to grow are tomatoes and okra.
“Except for you know…okra gets kind of fiberglassy when it's growing, you're picking it,” Attocknie said. “And the tomatoes, it's like you know once they get grown and they get going, you know it's just like man every day man is something you see your end result almost every day, almost every day, you know, and somebody's going to enjoy it.”
The community is welcome to volunteer or stop by to see the garden.
“I wouldn't turn anybody away, you know it's my job, but you know, and I think in the end result is we want to have people come interact and to be a part of you know something for the Nation, you know this is for the for everyone, you know,” he said. “I think we're going to pass this out to the children for the snacks, cucumbers and things like that [going] from farm to school and from farm to maybe the powwow, you know, things like that. When we have big gatherings, we can pass out vegetables to the folks and send them up to the commodity place or the food distribution, you know.”
The garden will grow organic food and herbs by planting natural repellents.
“Chemicals you know that they put on the food that you get from the supermarket you know could just they could just you know tell them what we're getting over there,” Attocknie said. ‘But right here you know you see what we're putting on it, what we're doing, you know we're trying to use onions to combat pests for the tomatoes and using basil using companion plants to you know go along with one another so that we don't have to fight all these pests, you know.”
Projects to be implemented this summer include a greenhouse and a flower garden to attract pollinators.
