A White House Vegetable Garden

Via a post by Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing, one man’s plea to turn the White House lawn into a kitchen garden:

I’ll note that the last person to try to convince a president to plant veggies was the always forward thinking Alice Waters, the proprietor of Berkeley California’s Chez Panisse. Waters asked then president Bill Clinton to grow some vegetables at the White House. Clinton responded, “send me the seeds Alice” only to renege on the idea, claiming that it would interfere with the historic and formal White House garden plans. But what about that White House putting green?

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom broke ground this summer on a kitchen garden at city hall. Former mayor “slick” Willie Brown responded lamely, “You start having cows and chickens and goats and other things at Civic Center and I’m not sure it’s a good idea.” We’ll see if the next president, whoever he is, has the courage to plant veggies. I would love to see a goat interrupt a press conference.

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3 Comments

  1. This plan is NOT a good one. They want volunteers to run the garden, which is a huge security risk. All it would take is one crazy person to dump a small amount of a toxic substance in the garden. They also propose school children come and take care of it. From WHERE? Buses leave horrible carbon footprints = NOT GREEN to bus kids in. Besides, when the garden is at its peak, the kiddies on on summer vacation. So, it will mean paid staff taking care of the garden, ADDITIONAL STAFF. There will need to be additional kitchen staff, as well. The cost will be around $500,000 a year to run this garden. NOT GREEN. The idea is to teach people to run a garden in their own backyard proportion to what they can care for THEMSELVES. PAYING someone to do it isn’t the message to send to the American people.

    I SUPPORT A SMALL FAMILY VEGETABLE GARDEN THE OBAMAS CAN HELP TAKE CARE OF AND ENJOY. Something the kids can actually go out and be a part of. Americans don’t have 1 acre to farm! We need to tell these groups to be reasonable with their plans.

  2. Kitchen garden for white house all well and good,but the ground’s should be kept like they were after all it is the Capital of this great country,

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