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June 24, 2009

White House to compost kitchen scraps

White House vegetable gardenThe "green" blog Ecorazzi, which posts the latest in ecological gossip, is reporting that the White House will be installing a trio of compost bins to help amend the soil in the White House vegetable garden next year.

First Lady Michelle Obama's garden, which grew to Jack and the Beanstalk proportions this spring, was no doubt given a boost by the compost that was worked into the soil before the vegetable plants went in.

But that compost was trucked in - from New York celebrity chef Dan Barber, according the U.S. News and World Report.

As any gardener knows, it is easier to generate compost on site, and certainly there will be enough state dinner scraps (no meat, no dairy) and enough grass clippings and leaves to generate a heaping helping of compost for next year's garden.

Why three bins?

Gardeners with room often have three bins and move the compost from one to the next as it ages. (Check out the cute composite photo that Ecorazzi created to illustrate.)

No doubt, rumors will fly that it is fake compost.

Already, there is concern among Ecorazzi readers that the compost bins will draw flies and, since snatching flies out of the air is a new presidential sport, Mr. Obama will be too distracted to get to the business of running the country.

Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Amy Davis

Posted by Susan Reimer at 3:55 PM | | Comments (7)
Categories: Garden news
        

Comments

Yeah for composting!!!

This is a good thing. It costs less as well. It is great for the gardens. It is to bad that they were not doing it before. It keeps all of that stuff out of the land fills and does a better job back in your own garden instead.
Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

Oooooh, I just can't wait to hear how the conspiracy theorists spin this one!

But, but, Compost generates co2!


Everytime you open a Pepsi and release co2 a polar bear dies.

How many people did they hire to make and tend to this White House garden? All reports make it sound as though Michelle is doing it all.

I'm a lazy composter, but every year we get several wheelbarrows full of fabulous compost for our flower beds. Great stuff!

A robust vegetable garden produces so much waste that you can't really keep one up without composting -- a bin here, a pile there. Most gardeners keep multiple rot spots going. The White House garden needs its own composting area, or it won't function right as a garden.

I absolutely agree, Barbara. The more you grow, the more you have to compost!--Susan

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About Susan Reimer
Susan Reimer has spent 16 years writing about raising kids - among other topics - in her column for The Baltimore Sun. And every time son Joseph or daughter Jessie passed another milestone - driver's license, college, wedding or a move to a new military duty station - she has planted another garden. Now she will be writing about those gardens - and yours - here on Garden Variety.

Susan isn't an expert gardener, but she wasn't an expert mother, either. Both - the kids and the gardens - seem to be doing well in spite of her.

She lives in Annapolis with her husband, Gary Mihoces, who loves to cut his grass but has noticed that there seems to be less of it every time the kids pass another milestone.
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