Growing Michelle Obama's White House Garden

When Michelle Obama, along with 23 Washington, D.C., elementary students dug that first shovel of soil on the White House grounds in late March, it was one small divot in the South Lawn and one giant scoop for the health and well-being of everyone in the country who likes to eat well and play in the dirt.

The White House Kitchen Garden, a 1,100-square-foot plot for organic fruits and vegetables, is the first garden at the president's official home since Eleanor Roosevelt's Victory Garden. And while that first lady's World War II garden was created to reduce the pressure on the public food supply brought on by the war effort, as well as helping to boost morale across the country, Michelle Obama's garden will go beyond horticulture.

The garden will not only renew the public's interest in homegrown produce but will stand as a symbol that growing more food locally and organically can lead to decreasing reliance on industrial farms (and all the harmful elements that accompany it such as fertilizer and fuel), as well as help guide us to more healthful eating.
The decision to eat healthier and cut grocery costs is something all of us are interested in. Don't believe me? Just pay a visit to your favorite garden center or farmers market, and you'll find plenty of first-time gardeners perusing the herbs and vegetables, and asking the experts questions.

The White House garden is home to 55 varieties of organic fruits and vegetables, including everything from arugula to zucchini with some unusual herbs (Thai basil and anise hyssop), as well as black kale, tomatillos and a wide variety of lettuces and berries. And already, some of the vegetables have moved from earth to fork, thanks to the warmer climate zone and earlier planting date. Oakleaf lettuce, red romaine, speckled lettuce and fennel and were billed on a White House menu in late April, and fresh thyme has been served as a garnish for fish.

But you don't have to be that ambitious to have a successful plot designed to feed you and your family, and fortunately our nippy nights and breezy days are over, and with the frost date now safely past in Michigan, it's time to get started.

If you haven't got your garden plot ready, get busy now and following the White House's lead, use organic compost and insect repellents.

We've provided the plot layout and the vegetable suggestions, so for a small investment in seedlings and a tool or two, you'll soon be digging your way to good health and a fatter wallet.

In the coming weeks, we'll be offering you gardening tips from Homestyle columnist Nancy Szerlag, and I will be providing recipes so you can make delicious use of what you've grown.

This week, I'm featuring an arugula, spinach and strawberry salad (Page 14H), which, if you were ahead of the game and sprinkled the seeds last month, you should be enjoying now. If not, visit a local market that supports Michigan produce.

And if you don't have a backyard or a suitable plot of land, there are still ways to help yourself and help the environment. Don't let the fact that you're a novice stop you, either; the first lady admits this is her first venture in gardening.

Just about any vegetable can be grown in a container -- from herbs to tomatoes and peppers. You can combine vegetable plants with flowers in your front yard, use containers on your patio or deck, or visit a community garden and sign up. Soon, you'll find that weeding and hoeing is a great way to de-stress, and that reaping what you sow tastes pretty delicious.

Failing all that, what about that windowsill. Doesn't it look a bit bare with nothing on it? You have no excuse for not picking up that shovel. This is the time for us all to get involved. We will all be better for it.

Memorial Day means gardening kickoff

After the cookouts die down and the parades run their course, the Memorial Day weekend becomes fertile ground for gardeners’ annual summer planting.

The holiday that signifies the start of the beach season also means the start of the gardening season, when eager green thumbs get their hands in the dirt.

“It’s kind of a kickoff for summer planting,” said Ron Simons, owner of R&C Garden Center in Scituate, Mass. “You’ve got a lot of people going to graves, planting all their annuals and starting vegetable gardens.”

In addition to the typical rush of growers looking for geraniums and begonias, nursery owners this year have noticed a spike in people who are using the holiday weekend to start a vegetable garden.

Vegetable seeds and flats are this year’s hot sale, nursery owners said.

“We’re selling a ton of tomato plants, but also things like cucumbers, summer squash, zucchini, beans, corn,” Simon said.

First-time vegetable gardeners should do their research and ask lots of questions, nursery owners said.

Shopping alongside the vegetable gardeners are people looking for the right plant to grace a loved one’s grave, an age-old tradition that usually takes place on Memorial Day.

Dave Baxter, manager of Rockland Garden Center, said shopping for Memorial Day flowers can be emotional for many people.

“We get a lot of elderly people that have to get to the grave on Monday,” Baxter said. “It’s a nice tradition. What will happen when that generation is gone?”

PLANTER'S GUIDE

Best choice for graveside planting: Low maintenance begonia or osteospermums.

Best way to start vegetable seeds: Start them indoors in pots or raised beds. Transplant them outside later.

Key to a great garden: Fertilized soil will give you healthy flowers and vegetables. Try pellets that release nutrients every time you water.

Best time to plant: Late afternoon, when the sun is not so hot and the wind has calmed down. This also gives the new plants overnight to acclimate.

Top sellers: Geraniums, begonia, tomato plants

Prices to expect: $1.50 to $3 for a flat of six plants flat of basic annuals, such as marigolds, petunias or snap dragons. $4 to $13 for a pot of geraniums, the most popular Memorial Day plant.

BUYING TIPS

- Look for vegetable or flower plants with healthy green leaves.

- Choose flats or pots with room for strong root growth

- Don’t judge a plant by the blossoms. Some flower later.

- Don’t hesitate to ask someone on the floor about plant varieties or techniques.

Veg in garden of Eden

May I offer a few fashion tips for the trendy gardener having wandered round Chelsea Flower Show on Monday.

Flowers were in and monochrome green gardens were out this year should you care in the least.

Blousy paeonies and stately angelica were everywhere and the horrible bronze Acer palmatum ‘Garnet’ was also making a dreary showing all over the place.

This year there seemed to be more seasonal flowers than ever before – which could reflect the credit crunch.

Designers were using flowers naturally in bloom now – irises, aquilegia and rhododendrons to be seen all over the place – suggesting a degree of penny-pinching in the normally lavish and absurdly expensive gardens. Iris sibirica – a great favourite of mine – featured in more gardens than I could count with its graceful stems and pretty butterfly-like blooms.

At least one of the big show gardens – the Eden Project Garden called the Key – had next to no landscaping, relying on plants including vegetables to create its effect. It was definitely one that anyone could recreate on any scale at home.

Leeds City Council’s garden also had limited landscaping and a flood alleviation theme.

The Daily Telegraph garden designed by Ulf Nordfjell – which has won the Best Show Garden award at Chelsea – used large rectangular blocks of rock to create interest in planting schemes.

It struck me that as well as looking smart, they could also be used in long wide borders as islands to weed, dead-head and tidy from instead of having to balance on one foot in the undergrowth to prevent plant damage.

Chelsea vegetable gardens are always a glamorous treat but this year many more of the show gardens included veg in the design incorporating slate blue cabbages, ruby chard and trailing melons.

Gardeners with tiny gardens could take away many tips to allow the inclusion of food growing into a small garden and still retain an attractive outlook.

The Gateshead Council display concentrated on food production with an attractive airy trellis of plum cordons acting as a partial screen – both pretty and productive.

My happiest moment came when the kindly folk at the Thompson & Morgan stand gave me a free packet of seed. It was a beautiful foxglove called ‘Pam’s Split’, which has white flowers with a deeply red speckled throat. I saw it in a number of displays and have high hopes of seeing it bloom next year in my garden if I plant it quickly now.

My final two Chelsea favourites were two paths – one of moss which sparkled with tiny lights in the Hillier stand and another made from 12-inch square terracotta paving slabs and gravel which anyone could recreate with minimal DIY skills.

Chelsea can never be gardening on a budget, but this year’s show seemed a little more common or garden than usual.

As local as you want it: An afternoon at the Kennett Square Farmers' Market

The barbecued chicken you can smell on the State Street sidewalks every Friday afternoon these days isn't the only thing at the Kennett Square Farmers' Market that's hot.

The market, which opened for the season on Friday, May 15, provides plenty of something even hotter: top-quality local food. A visit there will give you a quick introduction to some two dozen of the Chester County area's top producers of local vegetables, other foods, and a variety of handcrafted artisanal products.

Plenty of shoppers showed up for opening day, because local food is a talked-about topic lately, and what people are saying is that it makes more sense for the planet and your palate to get local food in its prime than it does to get an underripe tomato from a thousand miles away.

"Buy Fresh, Buy Local" is the mantra, and it's been catching on in the 10 years since Claire Murray of Inverbrook Farm and Doug Harris of The Paper Market started the market. Today it happens every Friday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. from May 15 through October, in the Genesis walkway off State Street, just east of Union Street, and along the State Street sidewalk.

In its first year, about five vendors took part. Today, it's about 25, with two of the originals, Inverbrook Farm and Big Sky Bread Co. still involved.

The Big Sky breads were a hot item, and so was the ready-to-eat barbecued chicken. Early season vegetables such as lettuce and rhubarb were available, and if you wanted ideas for preparing them you could see cooking demonstrations by Denise Sheehan and Yvonne Post of Cooking for Real taste the results. Other booths sold handcrafted or artisanally produced jellies and jams, chocolates, dog treats, soap, and a variety of other goods.

The theme for year 10 is "Decade of Delicious," says Abigail Morgan, one of the market's coordinators, along with Hailey Cohn and Sarah Reese. The market is run under the auspices of Historic Kennett Square (HKS), and according to Morgan HKS Executive Director Mary Hutchins has helped the borough and market to interact, with Hutchins securing grant money and making sure ample parking is available.

It's a win-win situation, Morgan says: Local farmers have an outlet, and the borough gets a weekly event where people can mingle and shop, which helps make the town a destination. Local merchants benefit from the increased foot traffic, and organizations that produce and promote local food and sustainable agriculture can distribute literature to people with an interest in the subject.

The market's popularity has benefited from increased interest in locally produced food generated by word of mouth and national media, including the Obamas' organic White House garden. "That's a huge part of it, definitely," Morgan says.

A couple of tips to know: The market has certain vendors who only come out for First Friday, when many of Kennett's shops and galleries stay open late. And there are special events coming up, according to Morgan, including a "Buy Fresh, Buy Local" festival on July 17, with live music and cooking demonstrations (Philadelphia singer-songwriter Chris Kasper supplied the music on May 15).

Several of the vendors on the market debut May 15 offered seedlings (also known as plant starts) for tomatoes and other vegetables. One such vendor is Happy Cat Organics, which specializes in heirloom plant varieties, and in helping people grow them. Selling plants makes good sense for a market that specializes in local foods, as one visitor said, because food grown at home is the most local food you can get. But if you don't have time, space, or the inclination for a garden of your own, or you want artisanal bread, hot chicken, and lots of other locally produced foods and other stuff, the Kennett Square Farmers Market is well worth checking out.

The Cuban model

In light of the current global economic shift, it is valuable to study other countries and cultures that have reconfigured their food production systems, energy resources, communities and economies in innovative and organized ways. Cuba provides an interesting example of this reconfiguration because of the ease required to replicate their systems in cities around the world. The country was forced to significantly change out of necessity. Yet those changes led to Cuba’s recent recognition as the only country approaching sustainable development by the World Wildlife Fund. This assessment was reached from a combination of the Human Development Index (measured by literacy, education, life expectancy and GDP) and the country’s light ecological footprint.

Sustainable Food Systems

Cubans went through what they term a “special period” when support from the collapsed Soviet Union ended and they were cut off from trade with the US. They found themselves without food or fuel. People began to reclaim unused urban lands and converted them into organic gardens called organiponicos. The Cubans used raised beds and natural pest control to grow organic fruits, vegetables and herbs in the former wastelands. Now cooperative farms make compost, utilize native insects for natural pest control, and teach and employ locals in organic growing methods.

With short travel distances and clean growing methods, Cubans now eat fresh, local food produced in their own communities. This system has provided a renewed sense of connectedness for the people. Havana is home to many organiponicos — urban gardens flourishing in alleyways, rooftops, vacant lots — anywhere there is space to grow food. It is estimated that these farms supply over 90% of Havana’s fresh fruit and vegetables, and now even provide some of the milk and meat. Fruits and vegetables grown include mangos, guava, figs, coffee, bananas, grapes, avocados, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, cassava, beets, etc. A variety of herbs are also grown, like ginger, oregano, rosemary, sage, basil, peppermint and other medicinal plants.

They also raise small animals including ducks, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs.

This system not only feeds the people, but also reduces green house gas emissions from food transport, while saving Cuba money in transportation costs and environmentally through reduced emissions.

Energy

Cuba has also improved the conservation and renewable energy infrastructure over the past few decades. In 2006, they embarked on a “Revolucion Energetica”, reducing kerosene usage by 34%, liquefied natural gas by 37% and gasoline consumption by 80%.

In order to effectively change the energy behaviors of the society, the Cuban government recognized the necessity of engaging the young people in their efforts. Young people are now employed as energy social workers, going into communities to teach people how to use new energy efficient appliances and how to conserve energy. They hold energy festivals where students sing songs and write poetry about energy conservation. Children receive awards and go on to compete nationally based on energy conservation projects. In the early 90s, Cuba invested in solar systems for its rural schools, health and social centers that now provide energy for lighting and give students access to computers and educational programs.

Cuba switched over to energy efficient appliances and light bulbs with compact fluorescents, creating financial incentives for lowered energy use. People who consume less than 100 KWH per month pay less than one cent per KW/H. For every increase of 50 KW/H, the rate rises steeply, discouraging excess energy usage.

Cuba is currently involved in projects to implement wind farms and is creating the country’s first grid tied solar electric 100 KW plant.

It is impressive that the small island country was able to make such drastic changes in its behavior and food and energy systems in less than 20 years. What made their efforts so effective was their level of organization and unification. They did this together, against the odds, in order to survive. Regardless of our societal beliefs pitting socialism versus capitalism, Cubans were able to find the resourcefulness, ingenuity, and togetherness that made this transition successful. It helps too that in the years leading up to the “special period” they were already studying organic agriculture and energy conservation methods, laying a solid foundation for when crisis hit.

What can Americans learn from Cubans? In order for the U.S. to make similar positive changes, we need to encourage communities to work together cooperatively, to get organized in order to affect big changes in the way we eat and live. While the people of Cuba may be financially “poorer” than our average citizen, they have something that is invaluable; an energy infrastructure that continually evolves, a local farming system where everyone has access to healthy food, and a health care system that takes care of all the people.

Annual TomatoFare plant giveaway

TomatoFare2009 in Soap Lake is having a plant giveaway May 17 to 31 for TomatoFare Associate growers and others who would like to grow heirloom tomatoes and participate as a grower at this year’s event.

Free plants will be given away to current TomatoFare Associates, others who would like to become a TomatoFare 2009 grower and others interested in growing heirloom tomatoes, if extra plants remain available.

Growers get free plants, keep all they grow except one week’s worth the week prior to TomatoFare2009 and will provide a week’s crop for the event. Growers get free admission in exchange for tomatoes and help at the event.

In past years, plants were given away on a set Sunday in Soap Lake. This year, people are asked to write and contact the above TomatoFare Associate growers to make arrangements to pick up their plants by appointment.

TomatoFare’s goal is to select the seed of “at risk” tomato varieties that are, above all else, tasty and to provide growers, farmers, chefs, contributing businesses and the public an event that supports and celebrates the process.

From source to table, artisan farmers will present over 100 varieties of heirloom, organic tomatoes for TomatoFare 2009 attendees to taste. Some of the region’s most influential chefs will present luscious dishes for guests to sample.

Growers of organic heirloom tomatoes will present tastings. They will also supply the chefs with tomatoes to prepare.

General admission tickets are $20 in advance; $25 on the day of the event. Admission is limited to 300 guests.

Early ticket purchase is suggested since the event is expected to sell out.

Capitol edible garden arrives with star power

The first edible garden at a state capitol went into the ground in Sacramento today, with First Lady Maria Shriver and garden guru-chef Alice Waters on hand to shovel some dirt.

The 800-square-foot garden, which replaced a flower bed in Capitol Park on the east side of the Capitol building, includes chives, thyme and basil along with beets, radishes, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini and garbanzo beans. Shriver planted some parsley.

"This is something you can do at home, at school and at every state capitol," said Shriver, who admitted she does not have a green thumb. She praised the community-building benefits of working in a garden and said, "Everything you need to learn in life you can learn on the playground and in a garden."

Shriver said she wants people to learn about California agriculture through the garden and is posting on her Web site -- www.firstlady.ca.gov -- lesson plans for teachers based on gardening. She has long been an advocate for edible gardens, chairing the California School Garden Network that has doubled the number of gardens in state schools from 3,000 to 6,000 since 2004.

Shriver said she got hooked on the idea after visiting the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley. That garden, an acre of land at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, was the brainchild of Waters.

"I'm trying to bring kids into a new relationship with food through taste and pleasure," Waters told a crowd that included a large number of children at Capitol Park. The Food Network's Guy Fieri also participated.

The garden did not cost the cash-strapped state any more money. The plants and irrigation system were donated and the Department of General Services will maintain the garden as it had the flower bed before it. The food will be donated to the Sacramento Food Bank.

The Food Network's Guy Fieri talks with a student from Skycrest Elementary School, center, and Galt High School, right, at the garden.