Good morning Christy,

First – Happy Birthday to Mr. Redd yesterday. A great day for a birthday – in 1865 the Civil War ended. I know that because it is my birthday as well. ( I am a lot older than Mr. Redd though.)

Second – It is going to be the most fun to watch Michelle Obama and all those kids enjoy this project. I also know you will keep us all posted on the Peanut’s gardening(and eating)adventures.

Third – thanks for all you do. I’m sure there are many lurkers who are inspired by you besides just me. Here’s a thanks from us all.

Today is actually Mr. ReddHedd’s b-day, but I’ll pass along the congrats to him when he wakes up from his sleep-in this morning. His colleagues sneaked the party in yesterday to surprise him — and boy was it a surprise.

I just love this garden project idea, and I’m so glad they are doing it. And I’m glad folks enjoy reading about it, too.

Meant to mention above, the WH will be doing garden tours that are open and free to the public, but you have to get tickets in order to take the tour. Information on how you can do that is here.

Just an fyi – be on the lookout for the next month or so for bees swarming. A swarm was found on a bush on the WH grounds at one of the entrances and was ‘hived’ by the WH carpenter. Apparently, the garden will have bee hives as well.
http://politicalticker.blogs.c…..m-of-bees/

Thanks for the tour info. I live in NEPa and get in that direction from time to time and would love to take the tour. I have to say I really love being retired. I loved teaching but this is great too.

Happy birthday today then. I don’t have any historic facts at my fingertips though.

That was a sort of wacky story about the bee swarm, wasn’t it? MSNBC mentioned something about them having been a hive remnant — that the hive had gotten too large and kicked out the excess bees to form their own hive. Great that the WH staff includes someone that knows what they are doing in terms of beekeeping.

I would love to take that tour, too. I was browsing through the Monticello website and thinking maybe we’ll take The Peanut and the FIL down there this summer for a long weekend. I’ve always wanted to see it, and it would be a great educational trip for the wee girlie who loves to travel and learn.

When I was a kid my Grandmother would draft me each Good Friday to plant potatoes.
This was not an optional chore and was done regardless of weather conditions.
Over the years I have wondered about this custom and recently read something interesting about it.

The tradition of Good-Friday potato planting stems from the Great Potato Famine. Protestants wouldn’t eat the potato because it wasn’t mentioned in the Bible, but Irish Catholics brought it into the Church by “baptizing” it and planting it on Good Friday.

This afternoon I will be digging and remembering her.

this week i (finally!) got my two raised beds put in and a new irrigation drip w/timer installed. now the fun part – deciding what to plant.

while i have lingering concerns the neighborhood fauna visiting with the new flora is gonna set my motion detector off all night long, i am beyond excited.

Re repulsing critters from the garden, I was reading Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte, and she suggests marigolds and wormwood (an artemisia – very decorative). Marigolds in the garden, but plant the artemisia outside the garden in the periphery because plants don’t like it either. I think my mint has avoided it but need another year to make sure. The mint definitely picked itself up and left the area around the horseradish! PS – mint repels ants. I had a bowl of mint sprigs on the counter, coincidently by the electric outlet that was the ant’s portal, and never did anything with them. they dried in the bowl and kept the ants away all year.

What a neat bit of history! This is my first year trying potatoes….maybe 7-10 days back I put five “eyes” in one of those new-fangled fabric “Smart Pots”; noticed today sprouts are breaking the soil. Immediately stuck some of the other eyes I’d cut in the second S. Pot and the remaining ones in a bushel basket bought for that purpose. Will be interesting to compare the results of the two containers. I’ll think of your grandmother while watching them grow.

The fabric “pots” should be considerable more durable than the thin wood basket. Hope I can talk a local garden center into selling some remnants of a similar heavy fabric they’ve used as a freeze protection blanket. All the contraption is is a circle with a closed-end rectangle stitched to it and would be soooo easy to make.

The White House garden is a great example and teaching tool. Good for them to keep bees and put in berry bushes too. I’d like to see them include simple solar season extenders made plastic bottles like these http://solarray.blogspot.com/2…..solar.html

Gardening, solar, and recycling all in one.

Gardening is good therapy.

On a lark, 4 years ago, I bought some “Seeds of Change” tomato and red chile seeds and started them in my basement. Moved them out to some Earth Boxes in May and have doubled my “farm” over the years. I thought I was doing it for the food, now I know I was just feeding my soul.

Plus it tastes really good! ;-)

Wrt the WH garden -

Saw a clip today of the woman (can’t remember her name) who was instrumental in pushing the idea for years. She looked so happy and seemed almost speechless to see her dream fulfilled.

Just plant what you like to eat that works for this season. Depending on the size of your garden, don’t plant what’s cheap to buy in the grocery.

I have had a veggie garden for years and look forward to getting it startd!! I have most of the plants planted and have just a few more to to get in the ground. I plant tomatoes, beans, peas, lots of Basil, several types of peppers, from hot to sweet. I have cucumbers, zucchini , summer squash, lettuce oh and potatoes. We always look forward to harvest time, several of the tomatoes never make it into the house as they are eaten as quickly as we pick the ripe ones!!

Our garden is being plagued by rabbits. (all but five of the 36 tomato plants have been ravaged.) Fortunately, I can get more plants, and the bunnies (both cotton tails and jacks) don’t seem to care for the sweet peas, green beans, or corn. Onions and garlic and peppers are thriving, cantalopes seem to have all come up.

While I am in enthusiastic agreement that the garden project is a wonderful activity to be pursuing, it has not been my experience that gardening is necessarily an “inexpensive way of making that happen”. Most gardens need deer fencing, and immense amounts of fertilizers, a watering system – usually drip of some sort. Lots of tools are needed. That’s all fine and dandy and a big part of the fun, but it ain’t cheap. Just read any organic gardening supply catalog and see if you aren’t tempted to spend a bit before you close the book.

Check out Peacful Valley Farm and Garden Supply for an example. I have no affiliation, I just happen to know of it as an example.
http://www.groworganic.com/def…..es=4504159

Deer fencing is only needed if you are at the suburban/rural boundaries in most places. Fertilizer? If you are gardening organically – compost is free. You make it with kitchen waste, a little dirt, some grass clippings, and time. If you want to mess around with it you can make fish emulsion. Get some bait fish from your local sports outlet, grind them up in the blender, put in a large container with water and let this ferment for a month in the sun. Stinky but well worth it.
Tools? The only things you need are a good shovel, and a good hoe. That’s two things, and you can get them at your local hardware store. Just make sure the handles are long enough for you, and that the edges are pretty sharp. Make sure you clean them before you put them away and they will last for years.
If you can’t afford drip irrigation, the watering can still works. You can get a plastic one of those at Wally World for about $2 that hold 1.5 gallons of water.
Spend what money you need on seeds from a good seed supply.

I had a garden that was 10 x 11 feet in Hayward California. I had a shovel already, and bought a hoe. Bought seeds. Made compost. In town, so no deer fencing. Just takes time to pull weeds and thin some crops (carrots, beets, etc). Got enough food for me and the tyke all summer, plus put up tomatoes, corn and green beans that lasted all winter. Whole project cost me about $35.

Rabbits’ digestive systems aren’t able to handle starchy foods and legumes, so that’s why the beans, peas, and corn are safe. I planted a garden once with a lot of “rabbit-proof” foods that I preferred, and then planted a plot separately with lettuce, chard, cilantro, and parsley so they could have something too. :)

I have been a gardener since I could walk I guess. First it was my grandparents then my parents and I have kept the tradition alive all my almost 60 years. As Christy will testify, if you grew up in West Virginia, anywhere except the middle of a big city, then a vegetable garden was a required part of your life as was putting up beans and tomatoes all summer for the winter. The WH garden is a brilliant idea and it will surely encourage more people to plant at least a few tomatoes and peppers. Planting heirloom vegetable is good as well. We have been spoiled by all the new fangled hybrids and have lost some of the virtues of saving seed from year to year. I plant all heirloom vegetables, some from saved seed, and the rest from Seed Savers. You always get a crop and while the tomatoes may not be as big and pretty as some of the hybrids the taste of a Cherokee Purple makes up for it in spades. There is something about planting an heirloom bean that has been nurtured and saved and replanted year after year for sometimes hundreds of years that makes gardening almost a spiritual experience. I don’t think I am ever as happy as I am when I am in my garden unless it is enjoying that first tomato of the season or the first cob of fresh corn which has been rushed from the garden to the pot of boiling water to capture every bit of its glory.
Happy gardening everyone!

I never heard of no need for deer fences. I didn’t know that people live in places where deer aren’t prevalent and they don’t have access to the gardens.

I never heard of kitchen waste compost and I didn’t know that it was the only kind of organic compost on Earth.

I never knew that fish emulsion was something that could be made other than ’store bought’. I thought it just came like I found it in the jar.

I never knew that shovels and hoes were available at the hardware store, or that they should be sharp and that I should clean them before I put them away.

I wonder if maybe a garden hose might work better than a “Wally World” watering can. What do you think? One trip out to the garden instead of a hundred. Seems like a garden hose might be better. They probably cost more than a watering can but hey, cheaper than drip, right?

I didn’t know you could buy seeds. I thought you could only buy full grown plants.

I see that you pulled weeds and thinned the beets. Didn’t you thin the corn? Seems you might have had a better harvest if you had done so. You said that you “put up” the corn. Why? Corn is pretty much great when eaten a few minutes after harvest. After that, not so much.

And in conclusion, I think you missed my point of my original post completely. But, hey.