White House Vegetable Garden at Your House

The White House now has a vegetable garden – or at least plowed soil and a plan for one.  It’s probably safe for them to plant cool weather crops, but still a few weeks away from the warmer weather plants.  I wrote earlier how spring fever hits me early and I can’t wait to start a garden. 

We’re going to have a community garden this year, which should be fun.  I’m thrilled that First Lady Michele Obama wants to bring healthy eating to not only the White House, but D.C. students and the homeless.

If you want to start a garden, the variety in the White House plan is a place to start and get good ideas.  Though there’s a complete lack of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, what’s up with that??  Lose some of that spinach and add tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers and you’ve got a pretty nice garden.  If you’re adventurous, try some hot peppers they’re easy to grow and great in salsa.  Cilantro grows like a weed and tomatillos are pretty care free.  See, I’ve got homemade salsa on my mind again and it’s coloring my whole outlook on my garden.  Green beans (pole beans) are easy to grow, but you’ll need a trestle of some kind to let them climb up.  There is nothing better than fresh green beans and sugar peas from the garden.

You don’t need 1100 square feet, my best garden was only 4×6 and we had a great variety.  You can then plant close together, since you don’t need to walk through a small garden.  Planting close together keeps soil moist and reduces room for weeds.  You can check out library books on Square Foot Gardening and Container Gardening,  perfect for the first time gardener.  Container gardening is great for patios and decks.

Here’s the White House garden layout.  The marigolds help keep pests away and nasturtiums are tasty in salads.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/garden_layout.pdf

Photos here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/20/Spring-Gardening/ 

Story here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52J62H20090320

I hope this inspires you to think about having your own garden this spring.  And it’s a great way to save money.