White House to have garden plot

I read in the New York Times yesterday that the Obamas are putting in a vegetable garden on the South Lawn of the White House. Their plot of land will be 1100 sq. ft. I just had to compare that to our jardin potager at La Renaudière. Our garden is 64 sq. meters, and that works out to about 700 sq. ft. We are being out-classed.

Daffodils out front

Of course, the Obamas have five mouths to feed (at least), counting Barack and Michelle, the two daughters, and Michelle's mother. We are only two mouths (but big ones when it comes to eating, I guess).

We also don't have the White House gardening staff to help us, or greenhouses in which to get our seedlings started. I've been seriously thinking about a greenhouse, though.

I think it's time for me to go out and weed —
and maybe even water — my little collard patch.

The NYT said the Obamas' garden will feature collard greens, cilantro, hot peppers, tomatillos, spinach, chard, kale, basil, and more. That all sounds great. The First Family will have a collard patch, as do thousands of people in the American South — and two expatriates near Saint-Aignan near France.

Speaking of collards, the ones I planted last fall have survived the winter and have started growing again. At least one started to bolt, so I pinched the top out of it this morning. I hope the plants produce a lot more leaves before they go to seed.

Here's the healthiest-looking collard plant
that survived the winter.

Maybe I'll plant some mustard greens again this year. They are really good to eat. I tried growing them a year or two ago, but they bolted pretty fast. I'm not sure why. This time I'll know to harvest the leaves as soon as they appear, before the plants send up their big stalks of flowers.

The Obamas won't be growing any beets, the Post article said, because the president doesn't like them. Too bad. I hope he has at least tried fresh beets, not just the ones that come in a can. I'm not growing beets either, because I don't think our clay soil is right for root vegetables. Besides, beets are a dime a dozen in France, year 'round.

But tomatoes! We hope to have tons of them this years, as we did in '04, '05, and '06. They are so much better than supermarket tomatoes when you grow them yourself and let them ripen on the vine. And aubergines (eggplant). They are expensive to buy in the supermarket. The garden-grown ones are not much different from the store-bought ones, as far as I can tell, but they are basically free. Like summer and winter squashes.

Primroses out back

We are also going to try to grow cayenne, jalapeño, and red bell peppers again this year. In those great gardening years of not that long ago, we had great crops of piments de cayenne and poivrons.

I'm getting spring fever. A couple of days ago I felt really blah about the whole thing, but now I'm excited and ambitious. It's supposed to be sunny for the next week or more, and we are getting more and more work done outside.