The day is quickly approaching, the ads are getting more intense, and the US will soon have a new President in office. The political season is upon us in full force.
It's all a bit stressful, don't you think?
Aside from the faces running for the oval office, some campaigns are non-partisan, progressive in concept albeit retroactive, with promises of great hope! All it takes is a little bit of gardening know how, community spirit, and a brief understanding of economics, foreign policy, and US history. No biggie, right? To the mud slinging politicians polluting our air waves, I say take the mud, add a little compost, and plant a productive seed, please.
Imagine a White House lawn kept trim without the use of fossil fuel powered machines, perhaps even free roaming sheep. Seems unfathomable, right? But in 1918 sheep were brought to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to keep the lawn trimmed. Not only that, but the sheep were sheared, the wool was sold and the proceeds donated to The Red Cross.
Even earlier, 1800 to be exact, John Adams planted a kitchen garden on the White House property. Andrew Jackson tended fruit trees in the conservatory in the 1830s. More recently, Alice Waters encouraged Bill Clinton to plant a kitchen garden, but unfortunately he didn't heed her request.
Currently, Eat the View, spearheaded by Kitchen Gardeners International, is a campaign to get the next guy in office to put an edible garden on the front lawn. They have a petition on the site where you can urge the next president to,
"plant an organic food garden or "Victory Garden" on the White House lawn, with part of produce going to the White House kitchen and the rest to local food pantries. The White House is "America's House" and should set a positive example for the country and the world."
It's a natural connection, gardening and politics: some people gain interest by realizing how budget-efficient growing your own food can be; others are passionate about how inherently low-impact a local garden can be on the environment. Either way, food and the nation's leaders have a lengthy history.
In 1917 The War Garden Commission was created as a way to encourage domestic agriculture quite literally. Men were off at war, women on the home front were asked to grow edibles to eradicate hunger.
The sole aim of the National War Garden Commission was to arouse the patriots of America to the importance of putting all idle land to work, to teach them how to do it, and to educate them to conserve by canning and drying all food they could not use while fresh. The idea of the “city farmer” came into being.
In the war-torn 40s, Americans planted nearly 20 million Victory Gardens; there were over 800 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park alone. It was a radical idea flourishing under the complexities of war: American families provided over half of the fresh produce consumed at that time. Men were, again, off at war, and the women were left to battle the food shortage at home. The Women's Land Army was born, which I have to say actually sounds like a Kathleen Hanna tribute band, right? To this day, San Francisco is a stellar example of community gardening in the broadest sense.
To many of us, the first clues of a sagging economy were the rising food and fuel costs. Those prices resonate the past, stirring a familiar response: people are back to growing their own veggies.
Learn more:
If the history of politics and food are interesting to you, the Harvest of Freedom website is particularly informative.
Have you read Michael Pollan's letter to the Presidential Candidates?
Current programs, based on a similar idea of low-cost, high-quality food include the San Fransisco project Victory Garden 2008+ and Freedom Gardens, an offshoot of the Path to Freedom family's ongoing homesteading efforts.
Similar to Eat the View, TheWhoFarm has a petition urging the next President to plant an organic veggie garden on the White House grounds.
Get political on the local level: Petition your town hall to create an edible landscape. If that's too radical, maybe they'll plant edibles interspersed with the ornamentals most often used in municipal landscaping.
The Farm Bill is a major piece of legislation and incredibly complex. Really, I can barely begin to understand it. If you're like me, a primer might be helpful.
Candidates trough it out on Rural Agriculture:
John McCain's Prosperity for Rural America.
Barack Obama's Rural Plan Fact Sheet.
Renee Garner has a passion to make things grow, although her brownish
thumb wants her to believe otherwise. When mud pies aren't on the
menu, you can find her doodling the days away at Wolfie and the Sneak.
