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Planting the Seeds of a Revolution
You have to admit that this gives new meaning to the idea of a "shovel-ready project." There are now 1,100 square feet on the South Lawn of the White House being transformed into a kitchen garden. If Americans follow the first family's lead, the seed pack will become the new stimulus package. At least we'll have something to do with those pitchforks after the AIG bonus babies surrender their money.
I tip my hat to the first lady since my own rookie season in the green league opened when my daughter was Sasha's age. It began with a lust for real tomatoes and a horror that she would grow up thinking cucumbers sprung full grown, cellophane wrapped and adorned with stickers from the supermarket womb.
I soon discovered that having a garden is like having a pet. (Obamas beware!) You start out dreaming about puppies and you end up wielding a pooper scooper. You start out planning for snap peas and you end up pulling weeds. You also get hooked.
The image of Michelle Obama surrounded by fifth-graders digging into the White House dirt gave heart to locavores everywhere.
The idea of an edible landscape was fertilized by left coast chef Alice Waters and food guru Michael Pollan. But it was Roger Doiron, a modest Zone 6 gardener - my kind of guy - and head of Kitchen Gardeners International who began a lettuce-roots campaign last year to "Eat the View" at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Now spring has sprung and we have the first mom getting her hands dirty in the attempt to get children to eat their vegetables.
But there is something else about the incredible edible project that also makes me do a fist bump. The Obamas aren't just eating the view, they are eating the lawn.
What Michelle and the kids and the crew did the other day was to drive a shovel right into the heart of that American icon: the lawn. They literally took the most pampered lawn in America, dumped it in the wheel barrel, and carted it away. All that was missing was a chorus of "This lawn is your lawn."
Is it possible that along with local, organic food, the First Garden can promote the thoroughly subversive idea that this symbol has seen its day?
I am not the only one who looks at lawns - including my own - as a populist enemy. The low grassy surface has its roots in the English aristocracy, among folks who had so much food and land they didn't have to farm it, they only had to display it.
Today, lawns cover 40 million acres, making them the largest agricultural sector in America. They consume 270 billion gallons of water a week, or enough for 81 million acres of organic vegetables. They suck up $40 billion a year on seed, sod, and chemicals, leading one historian to compare them to "a nationwide chemical experiment with homeowners as the guinea pigs."
We mow the lawn, we fertilize it, we pesticize it, we water it, for the absurd purpose of keeping this useless patch in a deliberate state of arrested development.
"It's actually devouring resources and polluting and happening in the most visible parts of our community - the vacant land between the house and the street," says Fritz Haeg, creator of the Edible Estates project, whose goal is to begin replacing the domestic front lawn with what he calls "full frontal gardening."
This may be a fertile time for change. During the housing bubble, people thought of their homes as an ATM or a transient way station. If we settle into a view of home as a place we nurture ourselves, we may have a grass-roots anti-grass movement.
I don't want to get carried away. The last White House occupants to eat the lawn were Woodrow Wilson's sheep. As a gardener, I begin every new term with high hopes and end up with tomato hornworms, a creature that makes the Very Hungry Caterpillar look anorexic.
Moreover, the White House garden is likely to produce a bumper crop of metaphors.
I can imagine the first Fox News report on the cost of each leaf of spinach. I can imagine when Miriam's Soup Kitchen begs the Obamas to stop sending over zucchini - HELP! Or the first time one of their cultivated bees stings a foreign leader.
But then again, the First Gardeners are in the first 100 days. We never did promise them a rose garden.
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32 Comments so far
Show AllWill the White House garden meet all of the criteria laid out in the new bill HR875 if it passes?
Hahaha, that'd be a good reason to veto it. But let's try to defeat it before ti reaches that stage, shall we?
Oregoncharles
Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the Whitehouse and at the same time supported nuclear power plants. Wasn't he a nuclear scientist?
As JFK once said: "It's the appearance of things that matter." Obama was the perfect choice for the powers that be. Brilliant!
Yeah, I believe he was an engineer on a nuclear submarine for the Navy.
Nooooo...that is a popular rumor. Carter was a navy academy grad. not a scientist or engineer. He was an officer on a diesel powered submarine. He was training to be an officer on the Seawolf...one of the first nuclear powered subs...then his dad died and he got a hardship discharge to take over the family business.
Ah, thanks for correcting me.
If we can get Faux Noise to spend some time worrying about the garden at the White House, that will be swell, as that will be less time destroying everything else. Same for Limburger, O Really, and the rest of that mob. We all know that garden will get the best care by people that know how, but it is the example that is important. Next fall a Mission Accomplished sign will be good.
The highly visible garden at the White House is an important example for this country's folks. All people who have land to garden on should have a vegetable garden. People should also raise chickens and bees. Bees are especially important, as they have suffered greatly over the last few years and are absolutely necessary to the production of food stuffs.
I trust I don't have to explain why gardening one's own vegetables is crucial in a time of global warming, depleted agricultural soil, species extinction, peak oil, increasing water scarcity, etc.
If you have a little extra time, a garden is so worthwhile. Your own asparagus, sugar snow peas, and don't forget the herbs such as basil and french tarragon. If you enjoy cooking at all, you can truly eat like a king.
A little extra time? Your own asparagus? Hmmmm, have you ever actually grown asparagus? It takes a massive amount of work to get it started and you don't reap the rewards for at least 3 years. But I get your general drift, I'm just giving you a hard time :) I'm glad there's a White House garden. Everyone should try and grow something, even if it's a pot of herbs on your apartment balcony.
I've had my own asparagus patch for a quarter century. Start with decent roots and plant them deep enough. It's not hard. The hard part is keeping out the weeds. It's best to be dilligent. I prefer a 'hula' hoe and hand weeding.
I'm jealous! I've tried twice (Minnesota-middle) and been frozen out twice. Too much work to dig those trenches and gradually layer in dirt to lose it again. So I buy local in the spring and cry when the seasons over. Sometimes I still find wild asparagus near our cabin.
As I recall, I dug a hole, put a bit of old manure in the bottom (not absolutely necessary), added a dash of dirt, put in the root and more or less filled the rest of the hole with dirt. Done. I'm MN-south, but if you have wild asparagus, there's no reason you can't have domestic. Make sure you don't buy some odd, less hearty variety. Don't cut it the first year and only a wee bit the second.
a revolution of self-sufficiency. how refreshing. maybe there's hope after all. thank you for the asparagus pointer.
Growing our own is all to the good, but I'd like to see more emphasis on replacing our lawns (full disclosure: Mrs. T and I have had a shade-loving ground cover, vinca minor aka periwinkle, instead of a lawn for close to 20 years).
Mowing and leaf-blowing are such pointless time-wasters, energy sinks and sources of pollution that a move in this direction would have profound long-term benefits.
As beautiful a sentiment it was for Michelle to break ground, as a hands-on organic gardener for 40 years, I hope to see her, as well as all of us,literally, on our knees in appreciation for the awesome wonder of planting seeds, and experiencing the miracle of harvesting that which sustains us...could elevate the way we percieve our existence, after the soiled knees and hands are washed.
I, also, have a long history of vegetable gardening, among other forms, and I whole heartedly support your experience and the wisdom you have derived from doing so. Especially, the broken, shortened fingernails, the stained jeans, sore back, sore knees, swollen knuckles, and daily sunrises of beauty and afternoons of accomplishment and happy satisfaction, buoyed by the humility that most people in this world appreciate, without piety.
The next thing you know Barack and Michelle will be hanging their laundry on a clothes line to dry in the Sun. Like the garden, that would be a good thing, for it is an act that is illegal in many communities, strangely enough. They can garden and hang clothes while Barack's bombs and missles drop on civilians in the Mideast.
a
Greg March___You can put salt on asparagus to help keep weed down and also a good garden weed killer will help.
Personally, I don't think the old salt trick is the best plan and while I do use assorted chemicals and commercial fertilizers, I try to severely limit the chemicals I apply to my food. If I can control weeds with a little physical effort, I think that's good in more ways than one.
MORE REVOLUTIONARY WOULD BE FOR MICHELLE OBAMA TO LOWER HER SALARY FROM 290,000 DOLLARS A YEAR, TO 60,000 A YEAR (1 A MONTH) WHICH IS A REASONABLE GOOD AMOUNT AND WOULD SET A REAL REVOLUTIONARY EXAMPLE !! THE REVOLUTION IS ABOUT SOCIALIST-EGALITARIAN ECONOMIC EQUALITY, NOT ABOUT DUMB STUFF LIKE PLANTING TREES AND STUFF
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Michelle Obama has an income of $290K a year that she earns or are you referring to the President's salary? I was under the impression she was not working as a lawyer, concurrent to Obama's presidency. And that is only a small portion of your vitriolic mercenary attack against an obviously fine woman.
Your example of socialist-egalitarian economic equality is hardly a persuasive argument for anything construed to be part of my belief system of humanism. Your obvious hate and envy of such a modestly high income indicates you prefer to attack ad hominem rather than searching for your own level of income doing something you love...
Tomatoes last year for the first time. Flowers right now. Outdoors.
Marijuana for last few years. Also flowers right now. Indoors. Though early, I just tried some, "purple haze," shoot, everyone should do this. I heard Obama inhaled, I have not heard though if he exhaled.
All Americans who want seeds for gardens should be able to get them for free. From the useless fed. Give people a small tax break if they grow a vegetable garden.
And KellyR, Minnesota, grow tomatoes etc indoors-turn a 400 watt gro light on at night when it 's coldest, maybe 50 bucks a month is all in electricity and it A. NOTICABLY Warms your house, and B., Grows vegetables, flowers etc. year round.
Obama was quoted as saying, "Of course I inhaled, that was the point." So I guess the exhale was that quotation.
I do hope they are aware that the White House lawn soil is probably incredibly toxic from all the junk poured on it over the years . . .
Her is a bit of irony.
IMPORTANT:
ORGANIC FARMING ILLEGAL
Bill HR-875 and CODEX ALIMENTAR
· Criminalizes organic farming.
· Illegal to grow food without permits, including backyard!
· Livestock must be fed anti-biotics.
· Cows must be fed growth hormones and anti-biotics.
· Will not allow composting and/or vermiculture (worms).
· Legislation is extremely broad with use of terms.
· Labeling for GMO products will be illegal!
· Unless food is local and raw, irradiation will be mandatory!
· The CODEX considers nutrients to be dangerous, toxic chemicals!
· Permits the use of veterinary drugs, hormones, herbicides, and pesticides at extremely high and dangerous levels.
· Eliminates nutritional medicine using therapeutic levels of nutrients to promote health and prevent illnesses.
· Can receive fines up to $500,000 for not obeying.
· Organized by WHO, FAO, WTO, American FDA, USDA.
· Section 103 of bill HR-875 will appoint officials from factory farm corporations and classify them as experts, while allowing them to determine and interpret the extremely broad legislation!
· Section 206 of bill HR-875 defines what will be considered a food production facility and what will be enforced upon all food production facilities. The wording is so broad that a backyard gardener could be fined and/or more.
· Section 207 of bill HR-875 requires that the state’s agriculture department acts as food police and enforces federal requirements.
· President Barack Obama supports this bill!!!
Check out www.healthfreedomusa.org to see what you can do to help! Call the capitol switch board at (202)-224-3121. Tell your legislature to stop the farming bills HR 875 and S 425 -(USA ONLY)
Along with the sunshine,
there's got to be a little rain sometime.
It looks like rain, folks.
If you plan to dig up your lawn to plant a garden, my advise would be to start small. 13 years ago we dug up a 5'x5' patch of grass and planted onions. Next we dug up a similar size patch and planted strawberries. Then we dug up another 25 square feet and planted a combo patch of corn, beans and squash. We just kept gradually adding on when time permitted. Each year our gardens expand, little by little. It's as much fun as it is "hard". You can do it! My disabled brother does it. If a paraplegic can grow his own food, then so can you! Get after it!
People - No need to crawl around on the ground to garden - and many of us are no longer 19, anyway.
RAISED BEDS are the answer. Get some old (or new, if you must) lumber and build beds about 2 feet high, fill them with good compost from your composted food and yard waste - or dug up yard soil between beds - and then just run a hand fork through the soil until it's pretty fine, then plant seeds.
With raised beds, you don't need to til, you never need a machine again. Every spring just add some compost on top (don't buy the sewage stuff at your garden store, go to www.fedcoseeds.org and buy organic compost if you don't have your own), run your hand fork through the soil to get rid of unwanted plant sprouts, and plant your seeds.
It's really quite simple and easy to keep going once you've begun. The trick is to START.
Gardening - and there's no need for pesticides, ever (get Rodale's Organic Gardening Encyclopedia) - is good for the mind, body, and soul. Really a tremendous stress-breaker.
You can just walk outside and munch some oriental greens or kale or other really good stuff and watch the minute critters who live in the dirt. I love tomato hornworms, they're beautiful and they turn into wondrous moths when they mature - - and they don't eat that much of your plants, either.
Very important to do this - our gardens do just fine in Zone 4 on the North Coast of Maine
Plant a garden, put windows on South side, store food for winter, install composting toilet, etc...we haven't much time to get ready.
We may be merging into anti-immigrant territory by eliminating all lower class landscaping jobs. Personally, I feel we should maintain a small but tasteful lawn that needs attention by workers as well as grow our small gardens to educate and provide extra food for those landscape workers.
To compost is to give life to your flowers and garden. Get a good book on composting and start off with everything you would throw away except meat. bones and any other kind of animal matter (except poop) not cat or dog but llama, goat, sheep, cow and horse. Let it all sit for a year and you will have wonderful startings for your compost heap. We burn wood during the cold months here in northern Ohio and you can add that to your compost. Oh by the way llama poop comes ready to use annd I have had some in the past and it is wonderful. Wow a blog about poop. But it is a great tonic for humans and a better one for your plants.
I think I'm going to puke.
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