Gardening

 My two retirement hobbies are reading and gardening, in that order.  I've been gardening in the Reston community garden since a couple years after buying my house in 1976. Over the years my wife and I have settled into a selection of plants to  grow, some to eat, some to decorate.  Gardening connects me to the cycle of the seasons which was all-important to farmers when growing up. It also offers the opportunity to improve my game each year, trying different things based on the experience of last year. That's something which my mother was very much into.

The Reston garden follows organic rules, which is fine to me, except that it extends to banning preservative-treated wood for raised beds.  Not good, offends mypenny-pinching soul. 

Gardening Time

Been in the garden yesterday and today.  The long range forecast is for temps above freezing, the snow is gone, and the soil is in good shape.  

So aching muscles but the satisfaction of doing something physical. 

Plum Tomatoes in Sicily

This NYTimes piece  interactive on the net) traces the shipping of tomatoes from Sicily to the UK, outlining how a hard Brexit might screw up the chain.

But what struck was the picture of tomatoes growing in Sicily.  The vines look to be about 12 feet tall, very thick, very very loaded with what look to be plum tomatoes (might be cherry tomatoes but I'm thinking plum).  I've never seen a row of tomato plants like that. 

The Fruits of the Garden

Got my first planting in the garden in around March 15.  Spent a lot of time last fall trying to get spinach started and thriving.  Now we're being inundated with spinach (fall) and scallions (spring) and the spring lettuce is now big enough to eat the thinings.  

Thinking about my garden got me wondering about the White House garden.  Turns out it's still in operation, and you can tour it, though you've missed the spring one. You can see photos at Instagram, whatever that is, although very few of the photos there show the vegetable garden.  Here's one, though.  I suspect neither Melania nor Barron spend much time there--the regularity of the planting suggests a good Park Service bureaucrat is caring for it.

Spring Is Almost Here

Weather forecast for tomorrow is for snow, along with rain, and sleet, but I'm looking forward to spring and being able to garden again. The winter has been mild enough, except for one cold spell in February, that the ground is not frozen.  After 40 years or so gardening in the same plot of the Reston gardens the soil is good enough that it can be worked relatively early. And beyond tomorrow's snow the forecast looks pretty good.

I wonder whether people who grew up in town (i.e., suburbs/cities) have as strong a sense of cycles as do those of us who grew up on farms?  I doubt it, but don't know.

White House Garden Lives!

From a post on plans for the state dinner welcoming French President Macron tomorrow night:

"The first course, using greens from the White House kitchen garden to represent a celebration of spring’s first harvest, will feature a goat cheese gateau, tomato jam, buttermilk biscuit crumbles and young variegated lettuces."

Our lettuce is up, but not yet big enough for salads.  Assuming the White House is a week-10 days ahead of Reston, this looks good.

Bipartisanship Lives in the WH Garden

Politico reports Mrs. Trump is continuing with Mrs. Obama's White House garden.

[added: "After brief remarks, the first lady, dressed in a red plaid shirt, black pants and sneakers, joined the children in harvesting lettuce and kale, peas, radishes, Swiss chard and mustard. They also planted cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, carrots, spinach and kale, the White House said."]

The Hostas and Caladiums With No Leaves

There's always a tradeoff.

What's the trade off for viewing deer from your living room window?

Having hostas and caladiums with no leaves. :-(

Interesting the way different groups of hostas have been more or less attractive to the deer.  While the deer got most of the hosta leaves in June, they just got the caladium leaves last night.

Small Gardens in the UK

The "allotment" in the UK is like a plot in a community gardens in the US, except with a much longer history..  It's a reflection of the difference in the two nations that a scholar is able to come up with estimates of the total number of allotments over more than a century, up to a million such gardens in a nation of maybe sixty million people.  Also in the UK, unlike the US, the national government had legislation on the subject, dating back to 1907, with allotment gardens dating back to the early or mid 19th century.

According to the linked piece, the evolution of allotments in the UK involved differing motivations and rationales: supplying the needs of the working class; serving as a hobby for middle classes; a focal point for socialization; and finally the trendy ecological concerns of recent times.

I show my prejudices by noting this long historical perspective should serve as a caution to US enthusiasts.

Vote to Preserve the WH Garden?

If you don't like the Democratic ticket you can at least vote to preserve Michelle Obama's White House Garden.  PBS Newshour covers a ceremony this afternoon which tries to preserve it as a permanent feature of the grounds.  Not quite comparable to Jackie's Garden, but something.

I think I've noted earlier my skepticism that the Obama children ever did much in it, despite their mother's naive hopes when it was first announced.  That's just as well, because I suspect Barron Trump won't be living in the White House and the Clinton grandchildren are too young.  So the Park Service will continue to care for it.

Given what happened to Carter's solar roof, I'd expect Trump to do away with all Obama innovations.  Indeed, I wish someone would ask him in the debates whether he plans to redecorate the White House to suit his tastes, maybe a nice gold color with "Trump" in neon above the portico?

The Clintons likely will continue with the garden, but without the fanfare.

The Last White House Garden?

Recently there's not been much publicity about the Obama White House Garden, which I've noted.  Apparently part of that is due to my lagging involvement in social media.  Turns out Obamafoodorama has moved to twitter, it seems. [Updated:  seems I saw that last year, but failed to follow Ms.Gehman Kohan on twitter.]

Anyhow, this week the final spring planting of the garden in Obama's terms of office took place, and the White House posted about it. Mrs. Obama can claim some credit for gains in health.

The really interesting question for a follower of politics and government is: what happens next spring?  Will Bill Clinton be out there planting, or Jane Sanders?  Somehow I don't see Trump's wife doing the planting, nor Mrs. Cruz.

The garden was a personal project of Michelle Obama, meaning it's doomed.  At best the new occupants of the White House will find the money in the budget to continue having the Park Service care for it.  But I remember that President Carter's solar panels were removed by the Reagans.  Each spouse has had her own personal projects, so my prediction is: no garden in 2017.

Spring and the Garden Calls

Reston's been in the 60's the last two days, so it's time to work in the garden, spreading manure, digging the beds, trying to get peas in timely.

That caused me to google for the White House garden news.  Not a lot.  The latest I found was a June 2015 piece on doing a harvest, segueing to planting a pollinator garden, including for monarch butterflies.  Doubt they'll take credit for the rebound in monarch numbers recently reported.

White House Garden Coverage or Lack Thereof

Apparently Eddie Gehman Kohan has shut down the obamafoodorama blog and instead is solely tweeting (https://twitter.com/obamafoodorama).  She notes that March 20 was the anniversary of the initiation of the project in 2009, but a quick search doesn't reveal any recent coverage of it. The last news item I find is from last fall.  Now that Sam Kass has left, I suppose Barack is worried about his legacy, and the family is worried about colleges, it may be running on bureaucratic inertia.   If so, that's the usual fate of initiatives of outsiders who come into the bureaucracy with great ideas.

The White House Garden: The Truth Revealed

My title is false advertising.  I've not posted about the White House garden recently, though it had its spring planting a couple weeks ago or more.

Government Executive runs a piece from the daughter of the farmer who supplied the dirt and the initial plan for the garden.  It's nice, not sensationalistic as my title would suggest.  What does come through for me, as I may have commented on in past posts, is the tension between the public play-acting and the real reality (as opposed to the unreal reality, not to be confused with the fake reality).   As an Obama supporter I take the First Lady at her word--when she started the garden she probably did have the idea that the girls would participate and it would be a real garden.  Because we, the great unwashed American public, demand perfection of our temporary royalty, that was never possible.  In the real world we sow our seeds too thickly and don't get the crop we should.  In the world of the White House, the gardeners can't admit to such failings, must always be on display, meaning the plants must always live in Lake Woebegone. 

A Tale of Two Gardens

The White House garden is under snow for the second time since they removed their hoop houses.

 Having worked last fall I've two beds ready for peas, if and when we get a couple dry warm days. We've kale too, although we failed to harvest enough last fall so it's straggly now, and hasn't greened up.  Should bolt in 3-4 weeks at most.

Polar Vortex and the White House Garden

Today's Post had a garden column in which the writer bemoaned the fate of his fall-planted fava beans, but was glad he hadn't built a hoop house because the recent cold weather would have been too severe anyway.  Caused me to wonder how the White House garden survived the cold.  In past years Obamafoodorama has noted the hoop houses surviving snow, but the cold might have been too much.

On a personal note, my wife harvested the last fall-planted (transplanted) kohlrabi just before the single digit weather.  Still good.

Community Gardeners Are No Angels

Grist links to an article on some problems some community gardens face.  Our garden too has locks on the gates and people complain of stolen produce and tools. 

The White House Garden

I've failed to keep up with the White House garden.  Maintenance on it was shut down during the government shutdown in November.  They've had a harvest of fall vegetables, installed some hoop houses, and now are facing ice and snow as the storm moves through.  Don't remember whether they did hoop houses last year.  A few of our fellow gardeners in the community garden are using hoop houses; my wife and I aren't.

The swiss chard won't last through a hard freeze being outside a hoop house; the kale will be fine for spring.  Not sure what she means by the rosemary being gone--that should survive the winter.  Cilantro will be okay in the spring before it bolts.

Outed: the Secrets of the Obamas and Their Garden

Found 5.5 inches of rain in our garden plot over the last few days; actually more because the rain gauge only goes to 5.5.

Assuming the White House garden got equivalent amounts, the situation described in this long Obamafoodorama post from yesterday is even worse than the pictures show.  The point of the post is that the government shutdown means very little work done in the garden by staff, so it's quickly become overgrown and unharvested.

The garden evolved from a family project in the spring of 2009, where the girls were supposed to get their hands dirty, into a showcase project for gardening.  The post reveals explicitly for the first time that the plants growing in the White House garden were transplanted from an offsite greenhouse location.  Lots of other details about the garden in the post, [edit] including the fox now prowling the grounds.

Harvesting the White House Garden

This week, they had a harvest event--inviting the kids who planted in April to harvest in late May.  More and more the garden becomes a publicity event, because a true garden would be harvested (and planted) right along, in succession.  Radishes, lettuce, scallions, peas, etc. grow on their own schedule, not the convenience of a PR event.  I'm not writing to criticize Mrs. Obama and her staff. It's just a matter of fact you can't live real life in the White House, at least not if you invite the cameras in.

As a followup to a previous post which I can't find so may not have completed, despite my skepticism their spring wheat is heading out and seems to be filling the rows pretty well.  Just a reminder I sometimes (often?) don't know what I'm talking about.