Posted on 03/19/2009 4:38:12 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Obamas Prepare to Plant White House Vegetable Garden By MARIAN BURROS
WASHINGTON — On Friday, Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of White House lawn to plant a vegetable garden, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II. There will be no beets (the president doesn’t like them) but arugula will make the cut.
While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at time when obesity has become a national concern.
In an interview in her office, Mrs. Obama said, “My hope is that through children, they will begin to educate their families and that will, in turn, begin to educate our communities.”
Twenty-three fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington will help her dig up the soil for the 1,100-square-foot plot in a spot visible to passers-by on E Street. (It’s just below the Obama girls’ swing set.) Students from the school, which has had a garden since 2001, will also help plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs.
Almost the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said laughing. “Now Grandma, my mom, I don’t know.” Her mother, she said, would probably sit back and say: “Isn’t that lovely. You missed a spot.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
hey we could make a mint selling those things and retire to Miami Beach...........
In an unrelated story, Michelle Obama announced that next week she will set up 50gal rain barrels at all corners of the WH, solar-chargeable generators, and stock up on $5000 of MREs and #10 cans of freeze-dried food in the WH residence. She was also seen driving to dozens of ATM machines, for no apparent reason.
;^)
That sounds like a humongous garden for peeps that have never tried one before. I would like to see how much time the Obamas actually spend out there.
I’d also like to see how much produce the school kids get to take home.
LOL! Just wait until they order the troops and the city dwellers to the countryside to help with the harvest! Then you’ll know you’ve truly arrived in an agrarian dictatorship.
-PJ
I’ll bet they’re going to be exempt from Monsanto’s power grab against home gardeners.
She'll turn over the cursory spadeful of dirt for the photoshoot and I'd lay money on the fact that either some hired out landscape company or secret service guy roto tills the rest.
I wonder if they're going to have to post more guards to watch the garden and protect it from vandalism. Or being raided by all the homeless types prowling the streets in DC.
It’s not the arugula. It’s the sneer that came with it when Michelle was talking about how hard things were when the prices were climbing.
Rows of Corn?
or
Corn Rows?
be nice......
Sorry, but Organic? That means manure as fertilizer. That should make tours to the White House smell very nice. Imagine International visitors coming for meetings and being hit with that aroma. And I don't think having a bunch of kids walking all over the White House lawn with muddy shoes and garden tools, making noise, etc. is respectful of the status of the White House. It sounds all "nicey-nice" to do this, but surely there is an empty plot somewhere in DC that is close by that can be used for the same purpose.
This whole "homey" thing happening at our nation's capitol just doesn't seem dignified for the grounds. First a swing/gym play set, now a veggie garden. What next? Sandboxes and slip-n-slides? Perhaps a mushroom farm? As for the play set we heard about being built there, I understand they are children, but surely there should be more consideration for our capitol's stature than for a couple of kids. Did they have a gym set at their Chicago mansion - I doubt it! And they were much younger and more likely to use it then. All this is being pushed in our faces just to show us they can do as they please and expect people to understand. I don't understand. There is a decorum that should be kept, yet the Obama's are flaunting decorum and dignity at every turn. From what they want to do on the WH grounds to how they treat visiting dignitaries.
Remember, the Obama kids are far luckier than most any children because they can play at Camp David any time, all summer long if they like, and Grandma can stay with them there. They can have all of this at Camp David, or ponies, cows, ducks, etc. but not at the seat of our government. Camp David is only about an hour and a half drive from DC and much nicer than swinging in the midst of DC's summer heat.
I wonder if the Obozo family will be living in the
White House when the vegetables are ready to pick?
I wonder if they are going to plant any cotton?
The WH stinks anyway.
That’s nothing. I heard they turned the Rose Garden into a watermellon patch. LOL! < / bad girl > :o)
You beat me to it. LMAO
HR 875 The food police, criminalizing organic farming and the backyard gardener, and violation of the 10th amendment...
http://thefinalhour.blogspot.com/2009/03/hr-875-end-of-organic-farming.html
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=12671
As a vegetable gardener myself, I must protest your insinuation that a garden is somehow beneath the dignity of the White House. There may not have been a vegetable garden on the grounds since the 1940s, but they have a historical significance and are completely appropriate. John Adams planted the first one, and Jefferson was careful to maintain it.
And an “organic” garden does not mean “manure.” It may mean compost, a very different and non-offensive loam made out of bacterially-degenerated vegetable waste. Composting is a art in and of itself, and an excellent fertilizer which is quite inexpensive. “Organic” will also mean that the garden won’t use chemical fertilizers and insect controls. They won’t be spreading horse poop on the lawn.
Presidents have made the White House their home for centuries, and have made all sorts of additions, subtractions, and changes over the years. The West Wing is built on the original site of Andrew Jackson’s Orangery, which was itself torn down and replaced with a greenhouse in 1857.
There is nothing so steeped in American history and self-sufficiency as a kitchen garden. We are originally a nation of farmers, after all. I hope that a vegetable garden remains on the White House grounds long after the Obamas are gone from it.
SOMEONE has to show children that vegetables come off of plants, and that tomatoes aren’t cold, pale edible baseballs.
KFC isn't half as good as it was 20-30 years ago, though, back when the name was spoken out word-for word. The large buckets of those things used to be sight for sore eyes. Not so much, now. It's about as abbreviated as the name is spoken, presently.
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