By Vanessa Richins

In the wake of the new White House Vegetable Garden, similar plots are popping up at government buildings around the nation.

One such garden (which they insist was planned before the White House Garden came to be) will be located around the City Hall building in Baltimore, Maryland.

The new Baltimore City Hall Vegetables gardens will be planted where their formal gardens are now located.

It will be almost twice as big as the WH garden, boasting 2000 square feet total.The harvest from the decorative urns, window boxes and raised beds will be donated to Our Daily Bread, a soup kitchen that feeds 700-800 people every day.

The Baltimore Sun interviewed Roger Doiron from Eat the View about this new City Hall vegetable garden. “This news about Baltimore is Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

We’ve been talking about it for months as we followed Eat The View’s campaign.

They, along with many others, saw their dream finally come true: the ground for the White House victory garden has been broken.

On March 20th, 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama and students from Bancroft Elementary School (District of Columbia) started working on the new vegetable garden.

Mrs. Obama told reporters that this was the first vegetable garden she had ever had.

She decided to do the garden to help show children that vegetables can be tasty as well as healthy.

As her interview with the NY Times shows,  “A real delicious heirloom tomato is one of the sweetest Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

The community garden movement has reached the global level.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced that a community garden will be planted at every USDA facility in the world.

The announcement was made on February 12th, 2009, in honor of President Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday.

Lincoln was instrumental in changing the science of agriculture and gardening forever. In 1862 he created the Department of Agriculture, and also signed the Morrill Land Grant Act, which created the state university system to teach and study agriculture and the extension service to bring this information to the public.

The first community garden to be planted will be the “USDA The People’s Garden,” located near Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

There has been no official position announced.

However, that hasn’t stopped one site from conducting a search for a “White House Farmer”.

The website was begun in response to Michael Pollan saying that the White House needed to hire a farmer.

“Pollan suggested the farmer be charged with transforming “five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn and plant[ing] in their place an organic fruit and vegetable garden” whose produce will be used by the White House Chef, and given to area food banks.”

From November 2008 - January 2009, the site accepted nominations for the White House Farmer. 111 people were nominated for the position. A poll was Read the rest of this entry »