If you’re looking for a sign of the times look no further than this: Michele Obama is putting in a vegie garden. You heard it right. A vegie garden. For the first time since Eleanor Roosevelt’s World War II victory garden, a patch of White House lawn will be dug up, and replaced with an organic plot filled with 55 different types of vegetables, herbs, companion flowers like zinnias and marigolds, even a berry patch. Barack Obama loves his berries, apparently.
The total up-front budget for the project is $200. Beds will be fertilised with White House compost, and much of the pest control will be left to beneficial bugs like ladybirds and praying mantises. The garden will even include bees, for honey and pollination. The White House carpenter, an amateur apiarist, is knocking together and tending the hives. Seeds will be started in on-site greenhouses, and heirloom varieties will be favoured. According to Mrs Obama “A real delicious heirloom tomato is one of the sweetest things you’ll ever eat, and my children know the difference.”
The naysayers are already venting their spleens. Some argue that a White House kitchen garden is little more than symbolic, that it exists in a sea of manicured lawn soaked in chemical fertilisers and pesticides. One commenter on the New York Times even declared “What next, chickens scratching about the South Lawn”. And yes, I’ll admit that Michelle Obama does look a bit ridiculous turning the sod in patent leather boots.
In defence of the garden it appears to be fair dinkum. White House assistant chef Sam Kass is co-ordinating the project, and the garden will be tended by a team made up largely of White House staff, many of whom were so keen to be involved that they volunteered to help out. Michelle Obama is also partnering with a local primary school, giving the project an educational edge, and the produce grown in the garden will be used in the White House kitchens and donated to a local soup kitchen.
But if it proves to be largely symbolic, so be it. A kitchen garden started, and tended by, the leaders of the free world is a pretty decent step in the right direction as far as I’m concerned. What the Obamas have done is something previous presidents (and first ladies) didn’t. They’ve connected the dots between food, health, economics and sustainability. Maybe that’s what Barack Obama meant by his campaign slogan “Change We Can Believe In” – a White House kitchen garden sets an example that’s potent enough to fire the collective imagination and translate into genuine change.
The big question I have is this: would our Prime Minister be so bold as to tear up a section of lawn at The Lodge and replace it with a vegie patch? Mr Rudd is a farmer’s son after all, and tending the tomatoes would be a nifty way of winding down after a long day saving the nation from the global economic tsunami (or is it a cyclone?). If he’s not interested, perhaps the G-G would be keen to install an orchard at Yarralumla. Quentin Bryce strikes me as an orchard kind of lady. Refined yet practical. Either way, the Obamas are leading with their actions, and the pressure is now on for other stately residences to match their efforts.
When Eleanor Roosevelt started her victory garden in 1943, she also started a movement that ended up producing around 40 percent of America’s war time food supply from the backyards of 20 million Americans. In Australia, we are now net importers of food, we don’t produce enough to feed ourselves and have to buy some in. Drought has played a major role in our food deficit, climate change is likely having an effect and the shrinking Aussie backyard doesn’t help. But imagine the possibilities if 15 or 20 percent of Australians grew a decent proportion of their own food, and shared any surplus. Would our water issues improve? Would our greenhouse emissions reduce? Would we benefit from eating fresher, tastier food?
Almost every day, I hear people say that there’s no silver bullet in solving some of the great calamities facing our world – issues like energy depletion, climate change, economic crisis, and poverty. But I’m utterly convinced that there is a silver bullet, and it’s to be found in backyard vegie gardens and home orchards. Mine isn’t a romantic view. Gardening is hard work, prone to the vagaries of weather and nature. But the fruits of such labour are immense, even in a single household. Collectively, gardeners can, and should, change the world. If the Obamas can do it, we can too.
First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 28th March 2009
