Is gardening political?



The White House's organic vegetable garden

 The other day I posted this photo of Michelle Obama out in the White House vegetable garden on my Sustainable Gardening for Florida Facebook page. I asked the question:

"Do you think Michelle's garden has changed the nation's mindset about organic gardening?"

 

I was expecting a discussion on organic vs. standard gardening, or maybe a comment on the raised beds. But no, the first two comments appeared to be politically motivated:

 

"...is she actually working in the garden herself ... or does she have someone else pull weeds and hoe ???"
"...I think most people have the same thought."

 

Then a couple of people countered with:

"You guys..she started a garden..brought attention to gardening..brought attention to healthy foods that come from a garden..and you want to find some kind of fault..are you kidding me?????? You think most people have the same thought? No they don't..GOOD people recognize GOOD works... and most people are good..BECOME good people and find the good..GEEZ..this crap has got to STOP!"

and
"She promotes gardening across the country, serves produce from the garden at State Dinners bring further attention to the garden and the results and has written a book about it."

 

When I finally logged back into the Facebook again, I said:

"Gosh, we're all gardeners here, aren't we? I think she has opened an important discussion and made a significant difference in how people think about vegetable gardens. She has introduced many of the local school kids to gardening, too. If we get kids involved in gardening now, the future will be better for them and for all of us.
And the profits from the book sales goes to the National Park Service, which maintains the White House property and so many other parks that house our natural treasures."

 

The first commenter came back with:

"and alll those people in white shirts re secret service personal protection --- eh ??? well , she is ussing and promoting monsato seeds and what not , i wouldnt trust her any further than i could throw a cow !"

 

And so it continued... Someone pointed out that "the seeds for The White House Garden are from High Mowing, a seed company that is so far removed from Monsanto that the difference is night and day." I could have pointed out that the people in the white shirts are the White House chefs who have fully particpated in this project.

 

So, IS the organic vegetable garden on the White House property a controversial topic? 

 

What I recall is that the big chemical companies were quick to criticize the project saying that the garden could not succeed without their chemicals. That Michelle was giving ordinary Americans the wrong idea.

 

Some say that this is politics as usual and that the unrestrained anger toward the Obama's and anything and everything they do is fair game.

 

I disagree.

 

Some of the first ladies have initiated some great projects that seem to have been appreciated by the whole country and not made into a political scandal. Ladybird Johnson had a wonderful vision of beautifying the country and her legacy is the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center.  Barbara Bush worked on literacy in the country and wrote a book from her dog's point of view. Laura Bush also worked on various literacy projects, which were appreciated by the left and right.

 

For example, my leftward leaning friend and author, Lucia St. Clair Robson, was invited to and attended an authors' breakfast at the White House. She went out of respect for the office and to particpate in lively discussion. Later she received this Christmas card from Laura.

 

 

 

Today, I think that people lack that respect.  It's a sad state of affairs when even gardening becomes political.

 

Can't we all just garden together for the greater good?

 

 

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Nectaring after the rain

front meadow planting

An exceptionally rainy spell (three+ days) finally broke, with bright sunshine late this afternoon.

Tiger swallowtail and bumblebee (notice how battered the flowers are!)

The swallowtail just kept working the flowers!

A tiger swallowtail was taking advantage of the dry weather to get some serious nectaring done. This individual spent almost 15 minutes working on a flower spike of this Liatris, supported from flopping by a green plant stake.

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MORE meadows, pocket meadows, and prairie gardens

I've been immersing myself in learning more about meadow gardening (and prairie gardening) and naturalistic gardens as practiced by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury and others. It's not an unfamiliar topic for me, but I've having fun revisiting it.

I'm doing a pocket native gardening program at the Cullowhee Native Plants Conference next week, so I'm wanting to be up to date.

It's so interesting that our North American natives (prairie species, but also our successional meadow species in the Eastern U.S.) have been embraced by naturalistic garden designers in the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany.

I would so like to visit Piet and Anya Oudolf's private garden this fall and some of the German gardens that are being experimental with naturalistic gardens.

I've got just enough frequent flier miles to book a flight -- perhaps that's a signal that I need to go!

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The birdhouse gourd adventure

A 3-year old birdhouse gourd sprouts in the compost.

Three years ago I thought it would be fun to grow a birdhouse gourd vine. They are not really edible so I'm not sure what my original motivation was. One of the vines did extremely well, scrambled into some nearby tree branches and grew to about twenty feet high with numerous gourds hanging from the tree like Christmas tree ornaments.

Some of the gourds ended up in the compost and sprouted just like this one. I was on my book tour (for Sustainable Gardening for Florida) and was a vendor for several gardenfests. The timing was right for two of them and I'd potted all the seedlings into 4" pots and gave them away to kids. I'd kept one gourd as the sample so they could see what they'd get. When the seedlings were gone, I stuck the sample gourd into some branches of a shrub in a thicket. I thought some bird would break into it and build a nest, but that didn't happen. Last winter, I put it onto the compost pile.

Last week I saw that the seeds were still quite viable and had sprouted in the compost again.

The new spot for the gourds at the edge of the cleared area.

I've been working on getting some beds done in time for some fall pumpkins. (More on this later.) I did not wish to provide any room in my regular beds for the gourds, but I had a spot at the edge of the clearing that I could use for them.

I'd saved out a bunch of dead leaves from various gardening activities. I've been using them as a water-retention layer at the base of the beds I've been building. I had some leftover leaves. I dumped two wheel barrel loads of leaves for the gourds. (I'll use the rest of the leaves for building a new compost pile.)

I dumped a load of finished compost on top of the leaves and fashioned a squash mound with a center swale. I planted the best-looking seedlings around the the edge of the mound and broke up the rind and the less mature seedlings and placed them in the center of the swale. After all that, I watered the whole mound and especially soaked the center. I will not use too many resources--water and otherwise--to grow the gourds, but if they do grow as successfully as the one vine three years ago, I will make a purple martin apartment house and install it down by the lake. Maybe inviting more purple martins into the yard will reduce the mosquito population.

Top view of the planted seedlings with the rind and the less mature seedlings in the center of the squash mound swale.

I will keep you updated on my gourds, pumpkins, birdhouses, and more.

Green gardening matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Mystery squash, easy basil, and fall vegetables

I've been down in the Piedmont for a couple of days -- for an evening hike at the Garden with a bunch of fabulous Summer Science Research high school students and a vet check-up for Woody (his partially-torn crucial ligament is being monitored -- happily, he's improving again).

Thankfully, we've had enough periodic rain that everything looks good, even though the lakes nearby (Lake Hartwell) and the ponds at the Garden are way down.

Interestingly, there's a mystery squash in the satellite garden.

I'd pretty much given up on squash in the Piedmont because of woodchucks in the back woodlot, but perhaps they've gone elsewhere now.  This "mystery" vine (quite healthy) is producing small butternut-shaped squash that have outer markings like young tromboncino squash, and were totally delicious as part of my dinner tonight, along with some young leeks and a red 'Pizza' pepper.  Yum.

I'm planning on planting long-season fall vegetables later in the month, continuing through August.  It's SO hard to think about sowing seeds and planting when the temperatures are in the upper 90's.

Young basil in flats up in the mountains have already yielded some exceptionally- tasty pesto. I hope they'll have been well-watered in last night's thunderstorms.  It's a great way to grow basil.  I've been doing this for awhile and it's totally superior to trying to coax edible leaves out of older basil plants in the garden.

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Maypop, a native butterfly & bee magnet

Passionvine, purple passion flower, maypop (Passiflora incarnata) is a beautiful perennial native vine with a wonderfully complex flower with crimped petal-like tepals. It dies back to the ground in the winter, but pops up in more places the next spring–in May usually.

Like most gardeners, I love beautiful plants that attract many pollinators. And for a vine like this, adorning the trelliswork is the ideal location. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

Find out what became of this beautiful vine; read my post over on Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens.blog...

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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The first beans, tomatoes, and squash

I was a bit late in planting some of the summer vegetables, but they've flourished in the initially cool late spring and now hot early summer temperatures.

Remarkably, I've harvested peppers and tomatilllos, usually a no-show until late summer.

There are LOTS of tomatoes developing and the first ones close to harvesting.  Woo-hoo!  And the various vining squashes are looking good, too -- no sign of squash vine borer moths or larvae (maybe they were confused by the strange winter and spring weather and somehow my plants will escape???)

This year, I do have mostly C. moschata squash varieties (trombocino & tatume) as well as butternut, and delicata), which are resistant to the borers, anyway, so maybe we'll have some squash this year!

Supposedly most winter squash like butternut and delicate are tasty enough as immature squash.  We'll see.  Apparently almost all squash aside from ornamental gourds (which are bitter) are at least decent-tasting, based on my limited Google search.

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