Imagine the AMA's response if she also planted some medical marijuana.

If one is interested in the flavor of food one should try organic.

As an experiment, take any produce or meat from a conventional grocery store, cook it. Don't eat it yet. Then take the same product from the organic department, cook it, too. Place both side by side and try the conventional product first, then the organic.

One will find the organic product far superior in taste, and quality.

The nutrition is higher too.

Food satisfaction will see you eating less, enjoying more, and loosing those added winter pounds.

Mrs. Obama,
As a botanist, organic gardener, and student of the techniques of permaculture, I applaud your efforts. But upon seeing the photo in this article, I'd like to suggest something: mulch! It keeps mud and soil microbes from splashing up on leaf crops, protects your investment in the soil by conserving water, and helps prevent weeds from taking over.
That being said, best of luck to you in preventing corporate microbes and their own silty kind of muck from undercutting your efforts, befouling your symbolic effort to invest in America's soil, and hijacking the whole issue like weeds--the way they did to organic standards via the USDA.

-Dirt Monkey
------------------------------------------------
If you don't ask yourself why, you know nothing.

Oh, for Pete's Sake!!! Can't one single thing be done without interference from some megacorporation? Thank you, Mrs. Obama for standing up is something you believe in. The one important factor that these mega agribusiness' do not mention in their 'carefully worded' directives is the fact that they, nor their products in any way nuture the soil. Their way of feeding the multitudes relys on methods that depletes the soil of nutrients resulting in food that is less nutritious and in many cases even toxic. None of these companies address the issue of sustainability and how many more years will they be able to produce in dead soil. Organic farmers not only produce more nutritious and tasty food but they are dedicated to a vow of stewardship in preserving the land for future generations.

All these companies care about is money. They don't care about their products. Don't care if it poisons people or makes them undernourished. Just plain evil.

I hope the Obamas actually see this site from time to time. It is clear that Michelle is a very, very intelligent and savvy woman. Finally we have a team in the White House who will be responsible in all of their lives. The problems with pesticides and fertilizers and GM foods have become well known in this country, as they have in the rest of the developed world. It is wonderful to see someone of such public status planting organically. I trust she will ignore the blitherings of these agri business profit mongers. I am sure she is strong enough to smile sweetly and tell them to piss off in really nice terms. They will only be satisfied with complete surrender, and that she will never give them. All intelligent Americans love having her as our First Lady. Hmmmm. I think First Woman might be a more appropriate label ....

That arugula needs a foliar spray of liquid seaweed to deal with the phospherous defficiency that is evident in the purple tint in the leaves, as well as mulch.

"BigAg Ticked at Michelle Obama's Organic Garden"

Good!

The agri-monsters are most likely especially concerned about the high-profile organic garden at the White House because they are trying to push legislation through Congress which is scaring the BeeJeezuz out of organic gardeners and small organic farmers alike. The bills they sponsor (!!! YES, they are responsible for these sinsiter bills seeing light of day !!!) could even end up making it so the home gardener has to follow impossible restrictions, and even risk invasions by USDA on their porperty to ensure they complying with the new rules they will initiate as the bills insist tracking of produce from everyone, ostensibly under the guise of food safety- even though it is the large-scale agri-monsters whom have the worst food safety records!
Once you know about this, you will surely freak out. I hope Michelle Obama stands up against them on these important issues as well (we'll see). It's a BIG deal, HR 875; HR814- and others , check it out (and raise HELL afterwards), because when they can thoroughly control such sacred survival tools, we are doomed:(
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/27-0
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/03/27-0
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h814/show

PS: Plant Something Soon

Though seaweed spray can increase nutrient absorption and supplies potassium, micronutrients and useful enzymes, it is not a significant phosphorus source. Fishbone meal or crushed phosphate rock are good organic sources of phosphate.

As to mulch, here in western Oregon, anyway, it's good to wait till summer before application, as slugs love to hide in the stuff during the day and then come out at night to munch.

I am reminded of story from a high school friend of mine, forty years ago. He was asked if he wanted an apple, and when he said yes, the offerer sprayed the apple with a can of Raid and handed it to him. When he asked why she had done that, she replied, that is what you are normally eating.
It made a lasting impression. We just don't normally see the can of Raid.

This just in:

"Monsanto Sues First Lady for Restraint of Trade and Product Disparagement; Seeks Damages of $12 Trillion, Public Apology and a Big Wet Kiss"

Ah yes, listen to the complaints from BigAgribus.

I recommend you rent the movie, "King Corn" for the main course. Then for desert, watch "This American Life, Season One - "This Little Piggy Made Me Vomit".

Yes, ADM, Monsanto... "Better living through chemistry", the companies that care for you.

Some members of MACA:

Aceto Agricultural Chemicals Corp
AMVAC Chemical Corp
Cheminova
Chemtura
...get the picture?

add all the big players
DOw
Dupont
Monsanto
Bayer
BASF

"Dear Mrs Barack Obama" --reflective of a mindset that is firmly entrenched in the 1950s.

Michelle should sell the White House produce at the Capitol, with well-designed educational flyers explaining the difference between "good" produce and "bad" produce.

Proceeds from the Capitol Sale would go towards an organic gardening movement in Washington DC.

Unless I'm not aware of that particular type of arugula, the plant pictured looks an awful lot like lettuce. Maybe it's an east coast variety of arugula...

The culture that supports and promotes "conventional agriculture" establishes dominion over all others by promoting dependency on what is more often soil damaging and oil consuming products.

Complete self sufficiency should be the goal of all Agro policies.

Seed Banks
Organic solutions
Local ownership
Local distribution first

Politically speaking, Arugula is a rich-liberal-yuppie veggie - associated with expensive restaurants. They probably have Raddichio and Swiss Chard in there too. Outside of eastern US urban areas with lots of Italians, few American have heard of it. Our Republican neighbors here in Pittsburgh couldn't even recognize the kale in our garden - but that might be more of a north of the mason-dixon-line-white thing.

Where's the nutritious (if you keep the ham-hock out), soul-food veggies - collards, kale, mustard greens; etc? They are better suited for the sultry DC climate, as well as the culture of 70% of DC's residents. They would also help Obama politically. He already safely has the white yuppie demographic, but blacks are increasingly wondering about him...

Hang in there folks. In fact, start fighting back if you haven't done so already. I'm not giving up the fight against Monsanto out here in St Louis and I even wrote a strong letter to the mayor about this. I will be writing to my other local and state legislators as well. If you have a big agri company located where you live, I strongly advise doing the same and get your friends, family, neighbors, etc ... to join you in voicing your opposition to their 50 years of agri-tyranny. I used to feel sad when I left rural MO to move to St Louis but now that I am finding out that over half my neighborhood came in from rural IL and MO and are just as sick and tired of the agri-tyranny, I haven't hesitated talking to some of these people and surprisingly, even the most conservative folks have teamed up in writing letters of serious concern to our local officials. As Moondoggy and SiouxRose have helped me to realize, we can still fight to restore Mother Earth's beauty and be proud of it.

"We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and ageing parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family's year-round food needs."

By trying to do the opposite, the Big Aggies point the way forward...quit the jobs, return to the world of our grandparents, and devote the time we are given to be alive to raising our own food...socializing housing is the key...that frees people from needing income, so they can get back to supporting their own needs...

We can all start planting now, then abandon the modern technologies that are killing, literally, everything, and jump to the new gardening life together on Sept. 22, 2012...that's 2-3 seasons of preparation...

Organic TRUTH is tastier, too

If they so much like like their periodic doses of neurotoxic poisons -- why doesn't big 'ol AG &
Mid-America CropLife Association (MACA), just go out and BUY their own
country,
President,
First Lady, and
White House garden ?

Millions against Monsanto - drop them a line....

Courtesy of the Organic Consumers Organization
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

go michelle. I think its totally perverse that someone should be harrassed for doing the right thing in todays awareness of the environment.
Its a perfect fractal example of how the lobbyists push around the politicians.
good luck.

I like the "an average farmer produces enough food to feed 144 Americans". I guess they think that employees of big corporation farms are like family farmers.

Genetically modified plants strong enough to stand ever increasing doses of pesticide and herbicide, cloned fish, poisoned ground water, ever increasing incidence of autism and cancer. Yes, we really don't grow things like our grandparents did. Much to our own demise.

Ask the farmer who tried to grow organic, and because the Monsanto chemical his neighbors kept spraying leeched into the water supply, his plants took on the traits of the Monsanto treated plants. What did Monsanto do? They sued this real "family" farmer for producing crops with their chemicals WITHOUT PAYING THEM.

From legalized drug pushers, to chemical pushers, to fossil fuel pushers, to "for profit" health care insurers, to the military industrial complex, this country, and the conservative greed hounds that spout their lies on Fox News are headed down a one way street. And all the money in the bank accounts of these criminals won't save us...or them.

All they ensure is that they will be the last to die...of starvation, of pestilence, of cancer and of diseases yet to be uncovered. And in doing so, they can watch their children die with us all.

There is a trinity we all must follow or we face collapse and extinction as a species.

1. Personal responsibility
2. Responsibility to others (the Golden Rule)
3. Responsibility to our mother earth, who supports all life on this planet

As was quoted in a recent major motion picture... "If the earth dies, people die. If people die, the earth lives."

Something for you who don't have a clue. A former Ct congressman, by the name of
Toby Mofett who is now an officer in the Poison Place called Monsanto was doing
all he could to destroy Ralph Nader.Mofett was a lefty in the Carter administration. Moffett's idea to cure the gas problem during the Carter administration was to raise the gas tax, 50cents a gal. Nader was right, we have been taken over by Corporate America.

I've gotten heirloom seeds and turned my house into a nursery - just with the time I could be watching TV. There's always time for a garden. Since there's no sun except in the front yard, this is a front yard garden. It's a challenge to keep it pretty, but that even makes it more fun - and there's a zinnia to brighten the table. Also the folks who walk by cheer the effort. I cheer Michelle!

Mulch with grass clippings (since of course you don't use chemicals on your lawn) and seaweed if you live close to any and oak flowers which right now are fallen in abundance. Compost everything.

Except for the fact that I know I would have to eat again right away, I would have puked when I read that article. Everyone with a brain knows that She would never again appear in the garden unless it was for a photo op. When she was on The View shortly before the election she was telling such a preposterous, obviously fabricated anecdote that even that seriously misguided right winger (the cute blonde one) and Barbara were rolling their eyes along with the rest of the cast. And she kept stringing it out way beyond decorum. Contrasted with the article on Haiti's lack of food, it is worth ruminating on that the U.S. turns food into fuel for vehicles, and there is hardly a more obscene action than that when you know that people are starving somewhere.

Obama's wife is as phony as he is and I expect we're going to be inundated with similar nonsensical prattle as the government's PR people have a whole, fresh new world of B.S. open to them.

Every time I go to the store and see the prices for sickly veggies, I return home and plant more seeds. The same amount of time wasted going to the store could have be used to plant an entire row of fresh organic greens.

Strawberries must be planted in virgin soil with no history of strawberries. The only way around that was to use soil bromide which sterilized the soil and provided huge crops. That chemical is now banned. Bromine is a member of the notorious halide group of chemicals from which most poisons are manufactured. Experiments have shown that crops planted in fumigated soil incorporated the bromide into the crops we were eating. So much for bigag.

Carniverous birds, especially black phoebes, with their incredibly sharp vision keep my garden almost free of plant pests. Pesticides kill the birds and bees.

When will the white house turn its grey water into Michele's garden?