The White House is planning a victory garden.
Michelle Obama will plant a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. With eleven hundred square feet of organic garden, there will be lots of room for the planned lettuce, sugar snap peas, spinach, broccoli, spinach, onions, chard, kale, collards, fennel, rhubarb, carrots, and an assortment of spices. It’ll be fertilized with compost from the White House kitchen, and use ladybugs and praying mantises to keep away pests. The family intends to use the food for their own meals, and share in both the labor and the bounty with fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School. The president himself has been assigned to weed-pulling duty. Total cost? $200.
This is a very small thing, but I think its impact could be huge. I hope they call it a “victory garden,” in homage to the widespread practice of growing food in one’s own garden during WWII. Forty percent of our nation’s vegetable consumption came from the victory gardens planted by 20 million Americans. Eleanor Roosevelt herself planted one on the White House lawn, over the objections of food industry boosters. No American president since has had a vegetable garden. Until now.
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