I am not sure the value of someone's vegetable garden should be measured by how much they give away. The goal of vegetable gardens, I thought, was healthy eating and a reduced food budget for the vegetable gardener.

Like flower gardens, vegetable gardens offer the joy of playing in dirt. Sometimes, the produce is just an added bennie. Sharing tomatoes among the entire neighborhood was always my father's main source of garden joy, so yes, how much he was able to share was a huge measure of his garden's value. I think most veggie gardeners would say the same thing.

The O'Malley and Obama gardens are as much - if not more - PR and encouragement during a dreadful economic time as about feeding the First Families. They are as much about everyone pulling together as about the end product. Once more, sharing the experience at the very least.

I keep reading all of the negative and discouraging writing - much it quoted and linked on this blog - about backyard vegetable gardening. Most of the articles quoted appear to have been written by someone with column inches to fill. Or, I suspect, by stringers. Negative words seem to sell better.

I'm puzzled as to why the mere existence of vegetable gardens and, by extension, vegetable gardeners is causing such a negative reaction among the exclusively flower people. Frankly, I have never witnessed vegetable gardeners involving themselves in a constant criticism of flower people.

Well said, Eve.--Susan

Just because someone is a public servant, it doesn't mean that they aren't entitled to a LITTLE relaxation. I know that if I had to face so many problems day after day, I would need a place to go to keep from burning out.