Marissa Antonio Mackin often can be found in a thicket of green leaves in her garden weaving vines in a trellis or harvesting ripe plums.
Mackin’s garden has more than 75 varieties of herbs, fruits and vegetables that can be used in Filipino cuisine, making her home a gathering place for people missing flavors of home.
Mackin grew up in Nueva Ecija, a region in the Philippines known for its plains and large-scale rice production.
“When you’re on the road, as far as the eye can see, it’s all green rice paddies if it’s just been planted, but when it’s harvest time, the color of the husk turns to gold,” Mackin said.
Mackin said she helped her parents with farming tasks at a young age.
“My father was a farmer with 6 acres of farmland, and my mother was a farmer too. When I was in elementary school, I saw my mom planting in our backyard. I’m the eldest child, so I had to help her with the fencing and helping her fetch water for the plants,” Mackin said.
Mackin said gardening helps her relieve stress and focus on other things.
“For me, gardening is full of life, and you have less stress. If you have a problem, you can set aside your problems and just think about what you have to plant and how you are going to grow your vegetables and your flowers,” Mackin said.
After moving to the United States, Mackin continued to grow plants in her apartment in New York.
“I gardened in pots on our neighbor’s roof, and I planted some herbs like basil and lemon grass. Their roof was right in front of our kitchen window. If I needed it for cooking, I could just pick it,” Mackin said.
In the spring of 2016, Mackin moved to Kernersville and started her current garden. Mackin said she began searching for flowers that reminded her of her mother’s garden.
“There are about four or five different kinds of flowers that I always saw in my mother’s garden. I know the name of the flowers in Tagalog, so when I got here I tried to find the English names. I looked up ‘American flowers with images’ and found it after looking through hundreds of names, and they’re called gomphrenas,” Mackin said.
Mackin said growing a garden helps make the flavors of Filipino cuisine more accessible.
“Since I have my garden, I don’t really miss my food. Gardening lets me reminisce about my life in the Philippines, and the food gives me a flashback of my life in the Philippines,” Mackin said
As Mackin often hosts get-togethers to showcase Filipino dishes that use seasonal produce from her garden, it has become a meeting place for the community.
“At the parties, people share stories, talk in their dialects, talk about their life in the Philippines and the difference between their life here. The parties also allow people to mingle, and it builds community. Sometimes Filipinos meet here but they came from different regions,” Mackin said.