Obamas to Plant Garden on White House Lawn

[doodadem]

Source: Washington Post

By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 19, 2009; 6:02 PM

For more than a decade, food activists have rallied, cajoled, even pleaded for a garden on the White House lawn. Now they're finally going to get it.

On Friday, Michelle Obama will host a groundbreaking for a White House kitchen garden on the South Lawn. She will be joined by students from Bancroft Elementary in Washington, who will be participating in the project during tomorrow's event as well as by planting in the coming weeks and harvesting later this year.

The 1,100 square foot garden will include 55 kinds of vegetables, including peppers, spinach, and, yes, arugula. (The list of vegetables is a wishlist put together by White House chefs.) There will also be berries, herbs and two hives for honey that will be tended by a White House carpenter who is also a beekeeper. The chefs will use the produce to feed the first family and for state dinners and other official events.

The White House will be using organic seedlings, as well as organic fertilizers and organic insect repellents. The garden will be located near the tennis courts and visible to passerbys on the street. The whole Obama family will be involved in tending the garden, White House spokeswoman Katie McCormick Lelyveld said.

--more at link--





Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031902886.html%3Fhpid%3Dtopnews

---

Now.....this is totally cool. And what an example to set!

[canetoad]

1. I've long wondered

what arugula is and got round to googling it today. We call it Rocket and I've been growing it for years. From scattering the seeds you can be picking leaves in about 3 weeks. One of the best value plants Ever.

[grace0418]

2. Delicious and nutritious as well. I love it in salad and in hot dishes. It's

great!

[JDPriestly]

11. Arugula is great for cool weather. It goes off and flowers if it gets hot.

So, it will produce early. Arugula in small quantities gives a lovely bite or tang to an ordinary green salad. Homegrown lettuce and arugula are so much tastier than the stuff you buy in stores.

And getting into the soil, digging around, touching the plants is so peaceful. I just love uttering around in the garden. It's troubling when plants don't do well. And here in California watering is quite a job.

[FloridaJudy]

3. Best way to get kids to eat their veggies ever!

My parents had a vegetable garden when I was growing up.

Of course, after that anything that comes out of a can is going to taste really disgusting. I only figured our why other kids hated vegetables after I tasted what passed for them in the school lunch.

[4_TN_TITANS]

38. "Best way to get kids to eat their veggies"

You got that right. We skipped the commercial baby food and pureed our own fresh baby food. About the time my oldest was ready to start solid food is when Gerber got slapped by Congress for too many fillers. One taste of that crap in the jars convinced me to never buy commercial baby food and the kids have loved veggies ever since (one is now a vegetarian).

Simple taste test:
1 jar of any-brand baby food veggies
1 can of any-brand same veggies

Blend the canned veggies with the water from the can and compare tastes. To step it up another notch, use fresh cooked garden veggies for comparison. You'll never feed your child commercial baby food again and they will love the tastes. Even more dramatic difference when comparing beef baby food to pureed fresh grilled hamburger.

[Towlie]

4. I don't get it. What does this have to do with the Special Olympics?

[No Elephants]

43. Oh, bee-HAY-ve!

[fascisthunter]

45. good question... why did you bring it up?

[defendandprotect]

5. Great news and a very down to earth thing to do with spiritual and heavenly connections--!!!

[Control-Z]

6. passerbys?

Wouldn't that be passersby?

Otherwise, how very cool! I'm a little jealous. My grandparents had a large garden when I was a child. All of us kids (sister, cousins) would help out when a frost was expected by covering each new sprout with a paper cup. Later in the year we would sneak strawberries and veggies right out of the garden.

I would love to have a yard big enough for a garden.

[JDPriestly]

12. If you have a balcony or patio, you can grow a few vegetables in pots.

I grow a lot of vegetables in pots on a pretty large cement area in the back yard. I do that because we have big trees in most of our garden. Also, here in Southern California, the sun is very harsh. I can move pots around to get the right amount of shade and sun. Lettuce and arugula are great in pots. You can also grow the cherry tomatoes in pots. I have even grown regular big tomatoes in a very large pot.

[Control-Z]

36. I don't have much of a green thumb.

Every few years I give potted plants another try - and kill them all. Even herbs in my kitchen window fail. It is about that time for me to give it yet another try, though. I think my biggest problem is over watering. Because (as you know) the So Cal sun gets so hot, I'm always afraid they'll bake to a crisp.

It sure would be nice to be successful for a change. I love fresh vegetables.

[JDPriestly]

48. Good luck. Chinese cabbage is easy to grow.

When it is ready to eat, pick it, wash it (obviously), fry it quickly in some oil and then add chicken broth for just a couple of seconds. It's delicious. Freshness makes all the difference.

[TechBear_Seattle]

37. I have a small balcony, and I grow stuff

I usually have rosemary, thyme, oregano and sage for the kitchen, a box of strawberry plants and usually a few flower pots to brighten things up. It is too cold to grow tomatoes or peppers, and I don't have the space to grow carrots, lettuce and the like (but those I can get easily at the Sunday farmers' market.) Still, it is a nice feeling to serve up a roast or casserole and say that I grew at least part of dinner myself.

[The Stranger]

7. It is so strange having someone in leadership who really gets it.

Strange, indeed.

[NBachers]

8. Will Monsanto arrest them for using organic non-GM seeds?

[elleng]

9. Good link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031902886.html?hpid=topnews

[humus]

10. keep the balance true

I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that . . . I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature.

Abraham Cowley


Exclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society.

Alfred Austin



Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.

Alfred Austin

12 The first gatherings of the garden in May of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby - how could anything so beautiful be mine. And this emotion of wonder filled me for each vegetable as it was gathered every year. There is nothing that is comparable to it, as satisfactory or as thrilling, as gathering the vegetables one has grown.

Alice B. Toklas

CABBAGE, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

Ambrose Bierce Source: The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

25 Gardens, scholars say, are the first sign of commitment to a community. When people plant corn they are saying, let's stay here. And by their connection to the land, they are connected to one another.

Anne Raver

How fair is a garden amid the toils and passions of existence.

Benjamin Disraeli

The principal value of a garden is not understood. It is not to give the possessors vegetables and fruit (that can be better and cheaper done by the market-gardeners), but to teach him patience and philosophy, and the higher virtues - hope deferred, and expectations blighted, leading directly to resignation, and sometimes to alienation.

Charles Dudley Warner
44 There is a great pleasure in working in the soil, apart from the ownership of it. The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the world.

Charles Dudley Warner

To cultivate a garden is to walk with God.

Christian Bovee
53 Observe this dew-drenched rose of Tyrian gardens A rose today. But you will ask in vain Tomorrow what it is; and yesterday It was the dust, the sunshine, and the rains.

Christina Rosetti


54 Beyond its practical aspects, gardening - be it of the soil or soul - can lead us on a philosophical and spiritual exploration that is nothing less than a journey into the depths of our own sacredness and the sacredness of all beings. After all, there must be something more mystical beyond the garden gate, something that satisfies the soul's attraction to beauty, peace, solace, and celebration.


If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Cicero

One of the healthiest ways to gamble is with a spade and a package of garden seeds.


Our vegetable garden is coming along well, with radishes and beans up, and we are less worried about revolution that we used to be.

E. B. White

To garden is to let optimism get the better of judgment.

Eleanor Perenyi

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. The paired butterflies are already yellow with August Over the grass in the West garden; They hurt me. I grow older.

Ezra Pound Source: The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter (After Rihaku)
133 I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.

Henry David Thoreau


136 Little by little, even with other cares, the slowly but surely working poison of the garden-mania begins to stir in my long-sluggish veins.

Henry James
137 There is nothing like the first hot days of spring when the gardener stops wondering if it's too soon to plant the dahlias and starts wondering if it's too late. Even the most beautiful weather will not allay the gardener's notion (well-founded actually) that he is somehow too late, too soon, or that he has too much stuff going on or not enough. For the garden is the stage on which the gardener exults and agonizes out every crest and chasm of the heart.

Henry Mitchell Source: The Essential Earthman, p. 17
It's amazing how much time one can spend in a garden doing nothing at all. I sometimes think, in fact, that the nicest part of gardening is walking around in a daze, idly deadheading the odd dahlia, wondering where on earth to squeeze in yet another impulse buy, debating whether to move the recalcitrant artemisia one more time, or daydreaming about where to put the pergola.

Jane Garmey Source: A Writer in the Garden
158 Forty is about the age for unexpected developments: extroverts turn introspective, introverts become sociable, and everyone, without regard to type, acquires grey hairs and philosophies of life. Many also acquire gardens.

Janice Emily Bowers Source: A Full Life in a Small Place, 1993
159 Finally, I realized what makes my garden exciting is me. Living in it every day, participating minutely in each small event, I see with doubled and redoubled vision. Where friends notice a solitary hummingbird pricking the salvia flowers, I recall a season's worth of hummingbird battles.

Janice Emily Bowers Source: A Full Life in a Small Place, 1993

And do not change. Do
not divert your love from visible things, But go on loving what is simple
and ordinary; animals and
things and flowers, and keep the balance true
-Rilke

The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution. (Paul Cezanne)

[arikara]

49. Love your quotes

Thanks for sharing.
:)

[Blue Gardener]

13. This is great news!

I'm more impressed every day with our new President and his family.

[panzerfaust]

14. But didn't that Mayor quit his job because ...

??

[underpants]

15. Good. Let's not forget that Laura pushed for more locally grown food in the WH too

just to be fair

[BumRushDaShow]

16. White House to break ground on 'kitchen garden'

Source: Yahoo/AP

First lady Michelle Obama is scheduled to break ground Friday on a new garden near the fountain on the South Lawn that will supply the White House kitchen.

She will be joined by students from Bancroft Elementary School in the District of Columbia. The children will stay involved with the project, including planting the fruits, vegetables and herbs in the coming weeks and harvesting the crops later in the year.

Mrs. Obama spent time earlier this week at an exhibit on rooftop gardening.

"We're going to get a big one in our back yard, the South Lawn," she promised the volunteers.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090319/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_garden

---

Yay! And involving D.C. children. :applause:

[WorseBeforeBetter]

17. Excellent! I was hoping some variation of the "edible schoolyard"...

would come into play at the White House.

http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/

[BumRushDaShow]

18. That's pretty cool.

Thanks for the link! :thumbsup:

[WorseBeforeBetter]

20. Perhaps one of those kids from Bancroft Elementary School will grow up to be...

White House chef some day. Hell, President. Who knows!

[midnight]

19. This is so wonderful. These students are going to get an

understanding on this wonderful use of the land and will be more likely to take care of the land instead of pollute it.

[defendandprotect]

21. A human approach to living in the White House -- love it-- !!!

[jwirr]

22. Our Victory Garden. That is one of the ideas I lobbied for with the

transition team. Glad to see that it is being accomplished. They are leading by example. I am so thankful for this President and his family.

[ConcernedCanuk]

23. Lead by example - who woulda thunk it!

.
.
.

Go Go President and First Lady Obama

Lead us outta this mess

. . . :thumbsup: . . .

[smalll]

24. The Washington Post is reporting already that arugula will be grown there.

That's dumb politics, and even a little insensitive when so many people are hurting in this economy, except, it seems, for rich criminal bankers on Wall Street.

[Oregone]

25. Whats dumb politics?

The garden?

Do you know how much energy/money/carbon emissions we would save if every family had a single tomato plant in their back yard? I don't. Someone may of calculated it though. From the growing lands (deforestation) to the transportation (oil) to the preservation (fridge energy), tons of petro and other energy is wasted yearly. Further, growing locally helps regional economies prosper and can re-establish an agricultural base.

With a looming environmental catastrophe, small gardens are no small potatoes. Its a huge. Especially when mixed with a little depression.

Without my garden as a child, I may of been raised eating dirt. It can help in the economic regard.

[humus]

26. supermarket-bought tomato

"A few years ago, in the mail-order catalog Seeds of Change, Peter
Bahouth provided an ecological accounting of the typical North
American supermarket-bought tomato. Here's an abbreviated version:
The tomato was grown in Mexico from a hybrid seed patented by a
genetic-engineering firm. The farm was fumigated with methyl-
bromide, one of the most ozone-depleting chemicals in existence, the
doused with toxic pesticides; the toxic byproducts of manufacturing
the pesticide ended up in the world's largest toxic waste dump, in
Alabama. The tomato was packaged in a plastic tray covered with
plastic wrap, and placed on a cardboard box. The plastic was
manufactured with chlorine, a process that produces extremely toxic
byproducts, in Point Comfort, Texas, while the cardboard originated
in an old-growth forest in British Columbia, was manufactured in the
Great Lakes, and was then shipped to the Mexican farm. The entire
process was fueled by oil from the Gulf of Campeche, Mexico. The
packed tomatoes were artificially ripened through the application of
ethylene, then transported in refrigerated trucks cooled by ozone-
depleting hydrochlorofluorocarbons to consumers throughout North
America. At several points in the process, workers and nearby
residents risked potentially harmful health effects through exposure
to various toxins. And needless to say, a tomato thus produced
doesn't offer much in the way of flavor, especially when compared to
a mouth-watering `Brandywine' tomato grown organically in the
backyard."

[Oregone]

27. Whoa, far more detailed than my line of thought (which was just carbon emissions related)

Scary, eh?

[arikara]

52. Not only all of the above but...

vegetables grown this way have approx 50% less nutrients than veggies grown back in the 50's. The genetic tinkering is not done to enhance flavour or increase nutrition, the only reason for it is so that a) they can spray more chemicals without killing the producing plant... and b) keep the resulting produce firm longer for shipping and displaying in the supermarket.

Vitamins and taste are not even considered one iota, which is why commercially grown tomatoes for example now taste like cardboard and have negligible food value in comparison to what they used to and should have.

[smalll]

28. No, the garden is fine. It's the arugula that I think is a dumb move right now. /nt

[Oregone]

29. I agree. I would of went with an artichoke section instead.

[LeftyMom]

32. I don't think it's cool and damp enough in DC for artichokes, is it?

[Gormy Cuss]

40. In the Northeast artichokes are grown as summer annuals.

I don't know about DC but some varieties do grow well in backyard gardens in NJ and MA.

[harpboy_ak]

30. Nothing wrong with arugula

Nothing wrong with arugula except that it grows very fast, so if you plant too much you can't use it fast enough, it bolts, and then develops a very strong mustard-like flavor, even when cooked.

Dunno why you are so obsessed about it. It's just another salad green.

[Hekate]

34. self-delete. wrong place

[JanusAscending]

31. Have you ever tasted arugula??

You might want to try it some time, it's really delicious! It's nothing more than a damn green small leaf veg. Like tiny mixed greens for salad. I, for the life of me, can't figure out why everyone has their knickers in a knot about a salad green! It might be a little more expesive if purchased in a market, but it's very cheap if you plant your own.

[Gormy Cuss]

39. Too bad they can't grow latte too.

:eyes:

Arugula is a weed harvested by Italians. Claiming it's something high-falutin' is ridiculous. It's about as elitist as chipotle. If it's not on the menus at "family style" restaurants already it will be soon.

[Hekate]

35. I brought a small container home last year & now it's all over my yard. It's a weed, not escargot...

I brought a small container home last year & now it's all over my yard. It's a weed, not escargot...

Maybe the folkss who think it's a snooty French veg would like it better if the old-timey American name was used: "rocket." As in, "Laura and Mary, would you girls go gather some rocket and other wild greens for our dinner?"

I love it that the arugula/rocket has naturalized all over my backyard. It's good in soups as well as salads, it's just that being a weed it's not a very tidy plant.

Hekate

[FloridaJudy]

47. And escargot are garden pests!

Who knew those icky looking critters were delicious cooked in garlic and butter? When I was a kid we just picked them off the lettuce and stepped on them (they crunch). The French have the right idea about what to do with an infestation: eat the little boogers. Come to think of it, they do taste a bit like boogers, too.

Nothing fancy about arugala or escargot: they're just weeds and snails. Either can take over your garden if not harvested regularly.

Now if the White House was planning to grow asparagus in a greenhouse, the complaints about elitism might be valid.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

42. It's fucking lettuce. How much more bandwidth are you gonna waste on this? nt

[fascisthunter]

46. hahahaha... oh my

keep tryin'

[IrishBuckeye]

33. Way over due, nice job Obama's!

Hopefully no future President who are anti-green will tear it out like the one did with the White House solar panels back in 1980's.

[AyanEva]

41. Now I want a salad...

[No Elephants]

44. Done right, this could show people what resources are available to them in their

own areas, like county, state and fedeal folk who will test their soil, agricultural students who will participate, etc. Also an opportunity to really publicize ALL the benefits of locally grown, in season products by showcasing projects like this all around the country, often partnerships between restaurants and growers. In places like NYC and Boston, rooftops are even being used.

In other words, you could get people of all ages involved, at whatever level they can get something out of the project. Heck this project should have its own website and TV show!

[hedgehog]

50. Next, bring back the organic lawn mowers:

[Scout]

51. this is very cool. especially that the whole family will take part in tending...

not just paid staff.