Andrew's Victory Garden

Well, Spring finally came to Seattle, a month after its accustomed arrival:


…and with it the desire to follow Michelle Obama’s Victory Garden example. This seems a craze around here. Our neighbor Laura, a buyer for a nursery, says that the veggie seeds are just flying off the shelves. So, we’ve got an early crop of greens and leeks started.



…and, through Laura we got some bodacious blueberries…



The grow food craze channels some deep issues out there: the enviro-locovore ideas that Michael Pollan trumpets nicely; the idea that to be healthy we should be eating about 80% unprocessed fruits and veggies that Michelle O talks to kids about; and the fear, fueled by this winter’s crash and burn of the financial sector, that hard or apocalyptic times loom. These channels bring a spicy variety of ideologies into the common endeavor of growing food. This Spring radical environmentalists, soccer moms, and those who’ve been watching their 401K’s vanish, all get out the rake and spade.

Despite the sense that our own crop will be a very minor contribution to the dinner table, perhaps the collective effort won’t be trifling as a nutritional resource. Laura told me that during the peak of Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden years, 40% of the nation’s produce was grown in family gardens.

-- Andrew