Squirrels and weeds take over White House garden

[Tx4obama]

Squirrels and weeds take over White House garden

Michelle Obama’s celebrated White House garden is overrun with weeds and wildlife — yet another victim of the shutdown, according to a popular blogger on all things food-related at the White House.

“The vegetables filling the 1,500 square-foot plot are now rotting away on the vines and in the boxed beds, thanks to the mandate for ‘minimal maintenance’ placed on the skeletal crew of National Park Service gardeners who remain on duty at 1600 Penn.,” reports Eddie Gehman Kohan, the creator of Obama Foodorama, a website that chronicles the administration’s food initiatives.

This lack of maintenance has had a “dramatic impact” on the kitchen garden, which is usually meticulously cared for, Gehman Kohan says. Mushrooms and weeds are popping up. The tomatoes and basil are out of control. The sweet potatoes have been relinquished to “worm food.”

A White House source told Obama Foodorama that under the shutdown gardeners are not allowed to harvest any of the crops. They are only allowed to water the garden and remove trash — restrictions that preclude raking, weeding, or clearing out dead leaves.

-snip-

Full article here: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/government-shutdown-white-house-garden-98278.html

[kestrel91316]

1. This must thrill the teabaggers to no end.

[pipoman]

2. Really?

Nobody has time to pick a 1500 sq ft garden..what's that 20 minutes a day? Bet I could find a volunteer in the area..

[SheilaT]

3. When I was a child we had a very large vegetable garden, a whole lot larger than 1500 square feet.

Probably more like half an acre. It was just my parents and us six kids who did the weeding and harvesting, and it certainly wasn't done every single day. It certainly didn't turn to weeds and vegetables rotting on the vine after two weeks, which was often how long it went without being tended.

[madokie]

6. I grew up with a big family

and a good half acre, hell it might have been closer to an acre garden and by this time of the year it was pretty much over and what was left was left to go to seed and let the weeds grow so as to provide a cover for the winter months and for fuel the next spring when we'd burn it off.

[uppityperson]

4. All the articles I find link back to 1 blog. It sounds odd, 2 wks in Oct should not ruin a

garden. Here is the blog link, but I'd like to see confirmation from another source, one that is not using this blog for its info.
http://obamafoodorama.blogspot.com/2013/10/during-government-shutdown-michelle.html#more

[Mariana]

5. Really, weeds don't "overrun" a garden in October.

Everyone isn't a gardener. Maybe this writer thinks a vegetable garden is supposed to have zero weeds at all times. If there are any weeds at all, he thinks the garden is "overrun" with them. Of course, some of the vegetable plants normally tend to look rather ratty this time of year, as they're playing out.

[Javaman]

7. politico. nt

[WatermelonRat]

8. Squirrels are welcome in my family's garden.

They're so much fun to watch.

[n2doc]

9. I find this hard to believe

Wouldn't the WH cooks walk over and harvest what they need? There is nothing in the shutdown that prevents them from working, or from walking over to the garden. This is either BS or the work of some idiotic staffer. I can't see Michelle standing for this, either.