White House Garden + critic

Wowie. On a brief search to find out why my parents' container garden is "not growing" as fast as expected I stumbled upon this unfortunate editorial: Liberal Common Sense: The Obama Victory Garden Not Growing on Me.

Go ahead and read the original article.

This author feels pretty threatened by the Obama garden, but stands strong: "I won't feel guilty about not having a backyard garden, if I were to come across an extra $200 to spend on one? I probably still wouldn't because I support local farmers..."

Apparently, the fact that Michelle Obama didn't go the extra mile and make the White House lawn a community garden really gets this woman's guff. It's a justice issue. She argues that some people don't have $200 to spend on plants (let alone the fact that a packet of tomato seeds cost me less than $3 and will yield, I'm guessing, 30 pounds of produce); and even if they did, they don't have the time to give...for free! Time is money. And well, my time is really expensive. I charge myself $100--an HOUR! That helps compensate for the arguably low wage I earn at my day job. Thus the ~10 hours of planting and watering I've put into each of my four tomato plants is going to cost me $1,000. Shit. On the other hand, I can afford it because I pay myself so well.

But seriously, if you factor in the labor that you force yourself to do for the inflated wage you charge yourself, it is less expensive to buy from a farmers' market. You know what's cheaper than that? Going to the mega-Grocery store that is down the block and open 24/7 and buying a can of ValueTime green beans with ham for $0.40 or whatever.

Never mind the fact that replacing White House lawn with an organic vegetable garden is a HUGE symbolic gesture promoting environmentally-friendly landscaping while challenging the passe mowed-grass aesthetic, climate change, the global food structure, and post-War agriculture... Whatevs.

I wrote a better and more mature response that will hopefully be found in the comments section of that particular post and you can read it there. I will, however, quote myself for writing this: "I think it's a poor excuse to say that by doing something for yourself you are depriving someone else of a living. It's like defending littering because someone gets paid to pick it up."

Overall, it's all about priorities and mine rest at home, with my family, surrounded by a garden that we grew out of love and willingness to do good work there. Boo-ya.