The Latest from the White House Garden

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know I have a great interest in the White House Garden that Michelle Obama initiated in early 2009. It has been a great success for the first season in terms of the harvest but of far more importance has been the educational and public opinion influence it has triggered. First lady Michelle has masterfully used it to let it speak loudly about food policy and personal eating habits. It has also done wonders for the locavore gardening and farming concept. Her emphasis on the value of involving children in gardening and food education has been especially valuable.

If you are a viewer of the Food Network on Cable TV then you have probably seen the recent Iron Chef battle that featured vegetables from the Obama Garden and even had a brief appearance of Mrs. Obama. It is clear to me that the impact of this White House garden goes far beyond the periodic photo event and occasional media coverage of a "pet cause" of a first lady!




The White House blog periodically has postings about the garden and here is the latest link to that story about the iron chef http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/05/iron-chefs-and-healthy-eating

There is another posting as well as a nice video about the effort just taken to both make the vegetable garden become a productive winter garden and also the latest policy effort of the Department of Agriculture to encourage farmers to do the same: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/16/planting-winter-garden

I am doing my planning and research as to how I can make more use of my garden in early spring and late fall as well. Of course this year it was a struggle to get it to produce well during the SUMMER given our dismal weather in June and July of 2009. I do see some cold frames and hoop gardening as essential in my own garden in the future.