White House veggie garden

All the garden blogs have been atwitter with the news that there would be a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. And even those who scoffed that Michelle Obama was just doing a photo op (wearing dressy clothes and breaking sod with a rake?!?) at the official groundbreaking were all happy to see the FLOTUS in more appropriate (and grubby) clothes today:




[pix from the HuffPo style section, via GardenRant]

I know, I know, it's another photo op, but that's still pretty damn cool. The whole White House veggie garden thing is really great exposure for gardening in general, and those kids from Bancroft will probably remember the First Lady getting down in the dirt there with them all their lives. What a great way for those kids to learn about real food.

Just don't assume you need a White House staff or a lot of money or expensive equipment to grow some of your own food. I remember our huge veggie garden in Michigan. I'm pretty sure Mom + Dad planted it because we didn't have a whole lot of money, and growing your own was (and is) cheaper and better than most stuff in stores. I'm guessing most kids today don't know that. (Local exceptions of note: Monte del Sol charter school here in Santa Fe not only has a student-tended garden, but they also eat what they grow there for school lunches; Camino de Paz, a Montessori school up in Española, not only farms as part of the curriculum — the kids also sell the produce at the Santa Fe Farmers' Market.)

Sorry, this is kind of rambling and disconnected. The upshot: our new First Lady is pretty kickass.