Grow your own.
 

Curious what you all think of this.

Michelle Obama to plant a vegetable garden on the white house lawn.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/dining/20garden.html



waiting patiently for negative responses to flame immediately.

Meh, no real feeling either way. If she wants to do it, fine by me. We have a small garden as well. Nice to get fresh tomatoes whenever we want them. I really don't see it being newsworthy, though. Lots of people have gardens.

I just want to know if SHE will be the one planting and taking care of it. If not how much is the person doing it getting paid?
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I think its a great idea. Why? Very simple. It takes us back to our roots. Life isnt about being waited on hand and foot, its about wiping your own ass. Going to the grocer to get everything then taking it for granted that their is food there is destroying the way people think. You gotta take a moment and realize just where the food comes from and what it takes to get it to you. If you stop and think about the simple things for a second you will appreciate just how awesome it is to have them and then look at everything totally differently.

I think a lot of the things Michelle Obama does is to prove this very simple very forgotten point.

Woops.....not what I thought this thread was referring too.
But I still think its a good idea, and YES- not so newsworthy.
What will be worthy is the "token" they use to do the planting and tilling. ;)

I did grow some "stuff" for the people next door. Funny how well weeds and water/fertilizer, will grow some stuff.:laugh:. "free" upgrades;)

Looks like that's a "No".

"The total cost of seeds, mulch and so forth is $200, said Sam Kass, an assistant White House chef, who prepared healthful meals for the Obama family in Chicago and is an advocate of local food. Mr. Kass will oversee the garden."

The reason this is newsworthy is because, like Sam said, people seem to have forgotten where food actually comes from and how simple it is to grow your own.

Billions of dollars are spent on transporting food all over the globe. How many times have you seen "fresh cherries" at the store for $15 a pound? I will only mention the carbon emissions from all that pointless food transport in passing.

Anyway, food is easy and cheap yet we spend so much on processed chemical bullshit and it's no surprise that there is an obseity epidemic. There are scientific studies done that show organically grown/raised food is significantly healthier for you (and better for the environment) than conventionally grown.

There is also the TASTE benefit of fresh produce. Take tomatoes for example. They are often bred to be strong and picked prior to being ripe and both of those things significantly reduce the quality of the flavor. Try going to a farmer's market with locally grown tomatoes sometime and ask for a sample. You will be shocked. Most markets have signs up that say "don't feel the tomatoes--THEY ARE RIPE--you will bruise them if you touch them" because they are sooooo delicate and ready to pop in your mouth. Then go to a Subway or somewhere and ask for a slice of tomato to eat. You'll be lucky if it's even red and doesn't taste like a rice cake.

It doesn't matter who is tending the garden. I'm sure she'll do some of the work and I'm sure the grounds keeper will do a lot of it. The point is merely to have a garden to simplify your personal food supply chain.

Support your local farm instead.

Thats fuckin awesome. The Obama's in general set such good examples.

My girlfriend and have grown lots of awesome stuff in the past at our old place and will certainly do more of it here. There is nothing like fresh food.

This year we have some bell peppers, more tomatoes and possibly some squash in the works. Growing herbs is also great and very easy.

Nothing like making pasta with fresh basil and tomatoes grown by yourself, drinking a mojito made with fresh mint while you wait for it to cook :)

Take it for what it is, a photo op.

fresh homegrown organic is by far the best tasting veggies you can get. My mom is a plant nut, has a horticulture degree and whole deal. Needless to say i've grown up with that kind of stuff around me my whole life. eventually i'd like start my own garden at my new house, have to pick a spot first

Came to this thread expecting a marijuana legalization discussion.

Was disappointed. :(

+1000

The obamas are celebrities, nothing more. I don't have a clue how so many of you guys on here still fall for that crap.

Hell yeah, we go to the local farmer's market to get our fruits and veggies. We buy that shit right off the back of the truck. A huge flat of strawberries, 6 bones. Oranges, 1 dollar for a 5lb bag. Gotta love that. The stores and the cost to get the products there are outrageous.

I think it's good.

I had never been to a farmer's market until I moved out here. I had never tasted actual fresh berries (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, etc.) until I bought them at one of the local farmer's markets for cheap, and it was shocking how much better they were.

y8s; I think I should point you to a recent "60 Minutes" segment with a very well known California woman who's been promoting organic food for many years. She was asked by Leslie Stahl precisely about that; it seems she has been trying to convince some Presidents to do that for quite some time.

I'm sure those 2 things are related.

a photo op... well that's a pretty shallow interpretation given the state of domestic food supply, but if that's all you get from it, you're losing out.

so even if this gets you guys to go to the local famer's market (direct support of local owners and operators--is there a party that thinks that's not better than subsidies for corn??) then it's a huge success.

planting a vegetable garden in front of the white house is not a new idea. Eleanor Roosevelt did it back when she was first lady.

See, the war required a lot of the produce and requried it cheap so people were encouraged to plant "victory gardens" as a show of support for the troops. home gardeners at one point were responsible for possibly 40% of the nation's total food production.

Rafa: that was probably Alice Waters. She and Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver are somewhat of the triumvirate of local food pushers. And they aren't about hippie liberal crap either. They're about the science of food production and getting the best food you can for yourself.

That means flavor, cost and health benefits--which in a society largely driven by "what's in it for ME?", are utterly important.

For under $2 you can get a pack of tomato seeds. I'd wager that the amount of effort required to maintain those plants and yield as many tomatoes as a family could eat in 6 months is much less than driving to a supermarket to buy mediocre tomatoes. On top of which you get way better taste and nutritional value.

There's your photo op.

Ever since I started to grow my own stuff I've stopped buying a majority of vegetables and herbs. 5 dollars for a pack of fresh herbs is bullshit. It really is nice having a fresh supply. But apparently that makes me a ------ with a vegetable garden.

Not in my book; it doesn't

More power to you ;)

yes. real men make bacon explosions apparently.

Seems a great example.

We live in cramped space here in NY, especially when you factor in the space for car stuff. We still manage to grow our herbs (or is it erbs), tomartos and berries every year.

Food Self sufficiency will certainly help with the lower 401k balance these days. My in-laws retired age 41....about 10 yrs ago. They are still living off the land and doing well on it....but they drive a Ka.

We have a vegetable garden here, always have. :) But supporting your local farm is very noble. When I was living/working on this farm a couple years back I planted more fucking vegetables than I care to remember. Everything we did was "green". Compost like you couldn't imagine, fresh eggs every day, raising pigs for meat, etc. Shit they even sent me to school to become a beekeeper and start up some hives.

Lots of people are and have been growing their own for ages. The Obamas are in it for the publicity. They have to make up for the main man himself publicly talking shit about the special olympics somehow. :facepalm:

Everyone takes it for how they take it. I still don't see why you Obama crazies are still preaching his name left and right every week.

Would rather see the prez plant a field of barley and hops...

and destroy third world countries.


Subsidizing local farms is hurtful to the developing world.

I could give 2 shits about the developing world in all honesty. I care about my own country 1st!

It may just be a ploy to get more support, but even if it is, who cares? At least they're setting a good example whether it's fake or not. Now if she brings the vegetables they can't eat to a soup kitchen or something like that, it'd be even better.

hahahahaha

Yea....lets help the world. Like AIG, lets send more money to third world countries while we keep going down the drain. :vash:

Go eat your meat turd and STFU.

I could give two shits about if they have a garden, I like fresh veggies. I must agree with sam though it does get us back to our "roots", just like in the 1800's lol

Just like AIG, we are all interconnected. One goes down, so do we all.

If you only knew how important and comprehensive world trade is in our current economy (and how important it is in our current prosperity) you would be less offensive towards my meat turd.

who the fuck cares what president is doing it? if it were GW Bush or McCain, it would still be an amazing example.

this isn't about obama. and it's not about who you think is crazy. and exactly who is preaching his name anywhere in this thread?

take the obama chip off your shoulder and try to look at the idea without looking at who did it. just for a second.

and then look up the "ad hominem fallacy"

lol, you've been riding the obama cock train ever since he was nominated to run. In all seriousness, you praise obama more than anyone I've heard talk about the guy. But that's besides the point. :laugh:

It has nothing to do with obama. Its not him necessarily, but his ideas. I come from a shop with a bunch of guys that have their own construction businesses. Foul mouthed, hard working guys that are pissed off about whats going on around us. I talk with them, read online, and watch FOX news. Everything that I read, see, or hear is not pro obama.

I'm not here to argue on the internet, nor to try and spread the obama word. :rolleyes: It just turns my skin inside out to hear such noise about what a great job this guy is doing when everything I see around me is going to shit. Who gives a fuck about the obamas vegetable garden.....really. Maybe he didn't cause all this, but his certainly not helping anything yet.

vash - I'm loving the siffle and ollie avatar. I used to stay up way past my bedtime as a kid to watch that on mtv.

I bet the most she does in the garden is a photo op pulling some tomatoes off a plant or something. They will pay someone $100k a year to pick the shit for them, another guy $50k to till the ground, another $20k to spread some fertilizer... oh well, not my money... or is it!?

Speaking of fertilizer, WHERE THE FUCK DID IT GO! Neither Lowes or Walmart had SHIT for fertilizer. I found like 3 or 4 bags of 8-8-8, and maybe 2 ripped open bags of 10-10-10 at Lowes, and Walmart had nothing. What the hell did I spend all day tilling my 3 gardens up for if I have no fertilizer to mix in tomorrow. Though there is still a month or so away from planting, but I like my stuff to be ready. Not even sure why I'm doing it, I'm not even going to be here in a month anyway :facepalm:

How long has he been in office? Is 3 months enough time to undo the damage that took years to inflict?

Please, FOX news is hardly news. The reason you don't hear anything pro obama is because you're surrounded by right winged middle america. Everything going to shit? He's barely been in office. Think with your right brain, not the trash bag between your legs.

lol.....trash bag between my legs? lol

Hey....hopefully everything works out. I never said I wanted obama to fail or the world to end. You guys on here are majority "for" obama. Where I'm from....its the other way around. That's all I'm saying....

vash, I dont praise the man, I defend him from the slanderous bullshit that's out there. at least on here.

and keep in mind that you live in your own bubble. surrounded by one mindset, listening to one side of the news. you're bound to develop a bias based on that. I'll concede the stimulus package is a stab in the dark to some degree because of the complex interrelationships of the world's economies, but how else has obama failed you already?

here's something to keep in mind:
obama took office when the nation was fed up with the previous administration. out of bush was born millions of government critics with little or no faith in the office. those critics are still in place and have turned their attentions to the new guy before he even had a chance to sign anything. the masses are loath to give their respect to anyone in government even though it's one of the most powerful in the world. that's fucking irony.

I should point out that bush won a second term even after everyone knew he lied about the weapons of mass destruction and origins of al qaeda to start whatever this war is. how do you think my bubble felt when that went on?

I tell you what. when I go to the opening day baseball game this year and Obama throws out the first pitch, I'll see how many people boo him. Last year Bush threw out the first pitch. (midly nws for language heh)

People planting victory gardens = win
People planting victory gardens to look good = opposite of win.

I don't know which one Mrs. O. has in mind here, but I'm pretty sure paying someone to maintain a garden on the White House lawn is going to cost more than the veggies it produces.

BTW, I have a garden, and I made a Bacon Explosion and a Bacon Cheese Roll for the Super Bowl. I guess you could say I swing both ways ACDC.

hussein

just plant a goddam vegetable garden already.

Fixed! ;)

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/..._470x313,0.jpg

Woo weee! That ain't no garden....that's a Forest!

haha holy shit!