White House Wheat

This year the White House garden has some wheat growing, planted this spring.  It puzzles me, because I've always thought of spring wheat as growing further north, but I guess they know what they're doing.  They've planted it in rows, rather than broadcast.  Again, I don't know why, because motherearthnews  definitely talks of broadcasting.

If I'd ever grown wheat, I might mock them as ignorant city slickers, but I never did, so I can't and won't.

Planting the White House Garden?

Obamafoodorama reports on the planting of the White House garden.  We've had a cool, rather dry couple of months which has delayed everything, particularly the cherry blossoms. 

In our garden we got the peas and lettuce, etc.in fairly early, though not as early as Al, who always beats us.  His peas and lettuce have been showing for a couple weeks now, while I just saw ours this morning.

Mrs. Obama is planting wheat, planning to focus on whole grain foods when it's harvested in the summer. The garden is up to 1,500 square feet, and as they have in the past, they're using seedlings, not seeds so much, which probably explains why they're slower than we are, even though their garden is probably a half zone warmer. 

No mention in the posts about whether the kids are doing any weeding--I think it's safe to say they aren't.  I'm not a parent, but I suspect it's tough to get teenagers to do anything like that.

White House Garden

Obamafoodorama has a report on the winter harvest--cabbage and broccoli.  Given their hoop houses and the relatively warm winter we've had, the garden should be productive.  (We've had some cold spells, with lows into the teens, but neither terribly low nor prolonged.)

White House Garden Gets Full Time Gardener

That's the word from Obamafoodorama.  Over the course of 3.5 years the garden has evolved considerably.  If I remember correctly it started off as more of a family project, with the idea the daughters were going to get their hands dirty.  I haven't heard that in a while, about 3.4 years in fact. 

With the garden being in the public eye there's lots more emphasis now on how it looks, which means they do a lot of swapping transplants in.  Most real gardeners don't have that room, nor that concern.  Although I remember my aunt and uncle had a terribly obnoxiously neat and pruned garden, which went with the terribly clean and organized house.  But then my aunt was the youngest daughter in a house with German parents and a mother who apparently was a bit of an obsessive.  But I digress.

A full-time gardener seems overkill for the square footage involved, but I suspect he's got other duties.  As the concerns for how the garden looks grow, the garden itself becomes less realistic.  The first year garden a tourist could view and say to herself: "mine is just as good or better" or "I could go home and do that".  I don't think a tourist could say that now, and a first-time gardener might not realize how high the hurdle has been set.

There's more emphasis on the organic plants being used, though I'm not clear that they are claiming the garden itself is organic. I believe they could, since it's now been more than 3 years since the beginning and I haven't noted any reports or inorganic fertilizer or pesticides being used. 

So the bottom line is the garden is much more a public relations thing than an Obama family thing, not that there's anything wrong with that.  Perhaps it's an indication of how hard it is to maintain a normal existence in the White House.

The Scarcity of Gardeners

The Times has an interesting piece today on the scarcity of urban gardeners, at least in certain parts of New York City. The writer visits a number of the urban gardens in the city and interviews a number of the gardeners and others, including a retired urban extension worker from Cornell.  The pattern seems to be that some gardens thrive, others fall into disuse, partially depending on the surrounding area and partially depending on the interest and energy of a dedicated gardener. 

But John Ameroso, the Johnny Appleseed of the New York community garden movement, suspects that the number of present-day gardens — around 800 — may be half what it was in the mid-1980s.

In his long career as an urban extension agent for Cornell University, Mr. Ameroso, 67, kept a log with ratings of all the plots he visited. “I remember that there were a lot of gardens that were not in use or minimally used,” he said. “Into the later ’80s, a lot of these disappeared or were abandoned. Or maybe there was one person working them. If nothing was developed on them, they just got overgrown.”

Seems to me the article undermines any assumption there's a long waiting list for urban garden plots in the city, some areas have waiting lists, some don't. The enthusiasm for gardening is similar to other enthusiasms, sometimes hot, sometimes cold.  It's not a firm foundation for redoing the basis on which America grows its food.

(In my own community garden in Reston, there is a waiting list.  Reston has expanded the area in which I garden twice now.  But Restonites are likely to be enthusiastic, at least enough of them to fill a waiting list.  We're a cosmopolitan bunch, Korea, Vietnam, Africa, Latino, some probably suffering from nostalgia for their childhood, like me, and some falling prey to the current fad.)

White House Garden

Obamafoodorama has a post showing the President in the White House garden.  I don't recognize the vegetables, but they've got good growth.  Don't know if they have sprinkler irrigation or what--the DC area is down about 7 inches from usual rainfall. 

Me and Chipmunks

Via Ann Althouse, here's a piece with which I sympathize.  I have to admit, though, I reverted to my basic conservative side when I had to deal with an infestation of chipmunks in my garden.  Chipmunks are cute, but property is property and my vegetables are my vegetables.  I'm not sure what the food movement, all those urban gardeners, etc., do with the forces of nature against which we must fight.  Maybe you only get lots of pests when you've been gardening for lots of years.

Gardens, Slaves, and Pigford

The NY Times has a long article about slaves, African-Americans, gardens, and vegetables.

I read it with interest, because I've toyed with the idea of writing on a similar subject, tied to the Pigford case.  A couple of points:

• some African-Americans run away from the land because farming means toil and drudgery (a sentiment which I share)
• heir property, as in the following:

"Perhaps Malva will feel inspired to water the garden next week, when Diana goes to Philadelphia for the annual slavery reparations conference. Along the way, she’ll also stop in Baltimore to ask her uncle to sign legal papers that would give her power of attorney to manage the land.

The farm, she explained, is heir property: it belongs to 19 relatives, across the nation. And almost nothing can get done without their written consent. This is a common dilemma on African-American farms, explained Dr. Bandele, who started his career with the Emergency Land Fund, a black farm and property preservation group.

One cousin neglects to pay his share of the property tax; in protest, another cousin refuses to pay. Ultimately, Dr. Bandele said, the property ends up in a forfeiture auction. Another black farm is lost."

You Can Lead a Child to the Soil, You Can't Make Her Garden

That encapsulates a lesson Mrs. Obama has learned:

Neither Sasha nor Malia appear in photos in the book; they don't like to garden, Mrs. Obama has said during recent interviews.

White House Garden Book: No Politics, No Gardening

A couple reviews of Mrs. Obama's book are in.  Grist says there's no politics in it (in the sense of urging political action to change food or garden policies); Obamafoodorama says there's no real how-to gardening in it.  Here's an earlier post on it: there's also no Obama daughters in it.

Mrs. Obama's Garden Book

She's on the move promoting her book.

I'll give her credit; I was originally afraid the garden was just a fad thing.  It's still a vehicle for spin, but that comes with the territory.

[Updated: here's a pretty full description of the contents at Obamafoodorama.]

Eat Your Lettuce

This Ann Althouse post seems to say that. 

Of course, the photo catches the lettuce at just the right moment; another week and the rows will be invading each other and starting to look scraggly.

Guerrilla Gardening and Life

The Post has an article on the new popularity of "guerrilla gardening", including throwing bombs:

They rush toward a drab vacant lot in Shaw. Some climb up onto the back of a truck to get better aim at their target. But these bombers aren’t likely to appear on any terrorist list or even get arrested. They’re throwing “seed bombs,” golf-ball-size lumps of mud packed with wildflower seeds, clay and a little bit of compost and water, which they just learned to make at a free seed-bombing workshop for Washington’s guerrilla gardeners.

 It goes on:

The bombs will — in theory — bloom into bachelor’s buttons and baby’s breath, forget-me-nots and marigolds when the truffle-size balls hit, then expand. It also helps if there’s a healthy spring rain, said Scott Aker, head of horticulture for the U.S. National Arboretum. If the bombs are launched into a sunny space where there’s not too much other vegetation present, then he gives the seeds a 70 percent chance of blooming. “But either way, it sounds like great fun,” Aker says. “On your commute, you can toss one out the window.”

I hate to be a party-pooper (I lie, actually; I love to poop on other people's ideas) but Mr. Aker has carefully chosen his qualifiers.  The likelihood of finding a bare sunny spot which gets rain is pretty damn small due a to 5-letter word: weeds. Weeds survive by colonizing any such spots.  And usually flowers which humans have cultivated over the centuries don't have the oomph to out-compete the weeds, as real gardeners know to their cost (of sweat and toil). 

But it's a fun idea, and in some ways a metaphor for life: we go through life tossing seed bombs, most of which fail to thrive but occasionally one will produce a short-lived bloom.

Something for the Garlic Eaters

Obamafoodorama posts before and after shots of the White House garden.  What stands out when you click on the before photo and enlarge it is the garlic they have growing.  Back in my youth, garlic was something used in cooking by southern European immigrants.   Times have changed.  (I tried garlic once but it was a tricky crop to grow.)

Looks to me as if each helper had about half a flat of starts to put out.  Not exactly a hard day's work, but the symbolism is important.

Obama's Garden

Obamafoodorama has posts on the actual planting of the White House Garden.  Apparently they're planting cool weather vegetables, mostly starts instead of seeds.  If they were sowing seeds I'd call them a tad late, since they're in a warmer area than we are. But starts makes sense: that way you can see where your untrained helpers are planting; wouldn't want to have any irregular rows, or rows which drift to the right in the garden.  Planted potatoes for the first time which makes sense in terms of productivity.

I observe Mrs. Obama favored girls, particularly Girl Scouts, in selecting her volunteers.  I also observe the idea that the Obama kids will garden has faded away.  It was a nice idea but this is a show piece with lots of different people with their fingers in the soil, which doesn't make for a good learning experience for the kids.

White House Garden

Today's the day Mrs. Obama is getting her garden planted.  I'm almost reminded of Tom Sawyer and whitewashing the fence, given the number of kids who will be working for her. It's really a two-fer, since as Obamafoodorama observes, some of the invitees are from key battleground states for the fall election.  (In DC, it's politics, always politics.)  But planting is really the easy part, once the ground has been prepared, which we can assume was done by adults over the weekend. 

She's got good weather for it, a little windy as the cold front moves in, but I don't know whether she's planting tender vegetables or not.  March 26 is late for the cool-weather ones (our peas, lettuce, onions are doing well, thank you) and a tad early for warm weather, though given the availability of hoop beds, they can probably manage okay.

Catching Up With the White House Garden

Obamafoodorama has a photo of detailees gathering greens from the White House garden (they call in people from elsewhere in the bureaucracy when there's a state dinner in the works.. I think what's in the picture is mostly over-wintered greens.  I had some collards today for lunch which overwintered.

Like any innovation, 3 years on some of the interest has waned, but I'm certainly envious of their beds and the neatness with which they plant.

Harvest Time at the White House

Apparently today is harvest time for the White House garden. Either I've not kept up, Obamafoodorama hasn't kept up, or the White House hasn't been publicizing it, but I've lost track of what they're growing.  According to today's post, sweet potatoes.

In our own garden the tomatoes are done, cleaned up the rest of the vines this morning (early blight is a problem so the vines go out in the trash, not back into the ground. We don't grow sweet potatoes, though we like them well enough.  The fall vegetables have been in the ground for a good well: lettuce and brassicas.

Back to the White House garden--if I remember correctly next spring they can claim to be organic, since the land has been free of chemicals for 3 years next March.

[Updated:  Apparently in June they were planting the three sisters of Native Americans, corn, beans, and squash--that's from a link in the post above.]

Permaculture Makes the Times

Some quotes from the Times article:

"Yet in recent years, Mr. Mollison’s ideas seem to have bubbled up from underground, into the mainstream. “I just trained the Oklahoma National Guard,” Mr. Pittman said. “If that’s any kind of benchmark.” The troops, he said, plan to apply permaculture to farming and infrastructure projects in rural Afghanistan.

This “guild” of complementary plants is the opposite of annual row-crop agriculture, with its dead or degraded soil and its constant demand for labor and fertilizer. Permaculture landscapes, which mimic the ecology of the area, are meant to be vertical, dense and self-perpetuating. Once the work of the original planting is done, Mr. Mollison jokes in one of his videos, “the designer turns into the recliner.

At the lowest level of a food forest, then, are subterranean crops like sweet potatoes and carrots. On the floor of the landscape, mushrooms can grow on felled logs or wood chips. Herbs go on the next level, along with “delicious black cap raspberries,” Ms. Joseph said.
Other shrubs, like inkberry, winterberry and elderberry, are attractive to butterflies and birds. They’re an integral part of the system, too.

Ruling the forest’s heights are the 40 large pin oaks already in the park, whose abundance of acorns will make a banquet for squirrels."

Some comments:

• blackberries require work, just as any cultivar does.  In particular you have to fight weeds and prune the canes.  That's from personal experience.
• also from personal experience: I've nothing against pin oaks; I've got one by my house.  But I can testify along with acorns for the squirrels, it provides lots of shade.  Hostas and impatiens do well, but I wouldn't try growing vegetables under it.  I've never tried carrots or sweet potatoes and I wouldn't; I don't want to waste my effort.
• the idea of layering carrots, with herbs above, then raspberries is ridiculous, IMHO. 
• permaculture does offer advantages--less erosion, but the productivity from a unit of area is going to be much less than intensive gardening, whether one uses organic methods or not.  
• the bottom line: there's no free lunch, ever since we left the Garden of Eden you always have tradeoffs.

First Tomato of the Year

Harvested our first tomato of the year.  Unfortunately it wasn't perfect, it'd split and something, maybe birds, had been at the flesh, but we got 3/4 of it.  Tasted great.  Today is also the day the NYTimes reviews the book on Florida tomatoes. The reviewer liked it. I suspect I'll have reservations.  July 6 to maybe Oct 15 marks the outer limits of our garden tomatoes.  For the rest of the year we have to rely on hothouse tomatoes or tomatoes which have to travel, meaning they lose some flavor.  There's always a tradeoff.