Michelle Obama's White House Garden
Michelle Obama spoke to a group of school children at the White House to thank them for helping plant a healthy organic garden. Both Michelle and Barack believe that school lunch and other child nutrition programs should include more locally grown fruits and vegetables.
Sam Kass, the associate White House chef the Obamas brought in from Chicago appreciates the new garden.
He reports that the garden has produced lettuce, snap peas, beans, kale, collards and chard and that he has taken 90 pounds of produce from the garden, including broccoli and green beans and “one beautiful eggplant.” He also said he has harvested herbs “every night,” which are not included in the 90 pounds. The garden has produced only one cucumber, which Kass saved for the children to harvest. It was supposed to be a white cucumber, but it had turned yellow.
No chemicals, fertilizer or herbicides have been used on the garden. The underlying White House soil was amended with crab meal from the Chesapeake Bay, green sand compost and lime powder. Only organic fertilizers and insect repellants will be used and that lady bugs and praying mantises will be introduced to naturally control other insect populations. A honeybee hive has been set up nearby for pollination purposes.
Kass noted that the garden “is not certified organic.” He didn’t mention USDA guidelines, but, in fact, no agriculture production can be certified organic until three years after conventional fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides were used on it. For the White House garden, a plot of grass that had been treated conventionally was dug up.
Kass said he had told the children that the Thomas Jefferson lettuce already has gone to seed and that he explained to the children about farmers passing seed down through the generations. Kass also said that he has visited the children’s school and that they told him working on a garden has taught them they need to take care of themselves and their families and neighborhoods. Kass said one boy told him he had “learned to be gentle” by tending plants.
The Full Story
by Local Green Circle, June 18th, 2009.
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