Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

He's not getting to the root of the problems with agribusiness. The rest is
off topic. We're not a lunatic fringe list.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 10/31/2009 at 10:07 PM Andeanfx wrote:

>AAHHMMM, and all this is while her husband is doing what with whom???? 
>Really now.
>
>
>Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. - Oscar Wilde
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
>To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009 7:42 AM
>Subject: [Livingontheland] Michelle Obama, DC schoolchildren help with 2nd

>major harvest of White House garden
>
>
>>
>>
>> Michelle Obama, DC schoolchildren help with 2nd major harvest of White 
>> House garden
>>
>http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/67300707.html?elr=KArksLckD
8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ
>>
>> Mark Wilson, Getty/afp - Getty Images
>>
>> First Lady Michelle Obama holds a sweet potato while harvesting the 
>> vegetables with students from Bancroft Elementary School and Kimball 
>> Elementary School, on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday.
>>
>>
>> WASHINGTON - Cupboards at a soup kitchen near the White House will be 
>> spilling over for several days after a donation of fresh produce
>harvested 
>> Thursday from first lady Michelle Obama's vegetable garden.
>>
>> Mrs. Obama invited about 30 fifth-graders from two District of Columbia 
>> public elementary schools to help with the project. One of the schools, 
>> Bancroft Elementary, has helped with the garden since it began,
>preparing 
>> the soil, planting the crops and harvesting in the spring.
>>
>> "Are you guys ready to do some work? Are you ready to work really hard? 
>> Are you ready to get dirty?" she asked them. "All right, let's go! Let's

>> go, let's do it, let's do it."
>>
>> The students were divided into groups of three and paired with an adult 
>> who showed them what to do. All told, they spent about a half-hour
>jabbing 
>> and digging at the plot on the South Lawn with pitchforks and other
>tools.
>>
>> They filled one wheelbarrow with huge sweet potatoes, and filled baskets

>> and bowls with carrots, fennel, lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, turnips, 
>> eggplant, peppers, tomatillos and greens, for a total of 223 pounds,
>Mrs. 
>> Obama's office said later in the day. Most of the produce is being given

>> to Miriam's Kitchen for the next days' meals. Mrs. Obama helped serve 
>> lunch there earlier this year.
>>
>> Before Thursday, the garden already had produced more than 740 pounds of

>> food, Mrs. Obama said, bringing the total for the year to more than 960 
>> pounds. Some has been served at White House events.
>>
>> The first lady and her group first tackled sweet potatoes before moving
>on 
>> to carrots and big bulbs of fennel. At one point, she held up one of the

>> larger orange-colored spuds and said: "This can feed an army."
>>
>> Before the harvesting began, she said she and daughters, Malia, 11, and 
>> Sasha, 8, already had helped themselves to some sweet potatoes.
>>
>> The harvest was the second for the garden. More than 70 pounds of
>lettuce 
>> and 12 pounds of peas came out of a springtime harvest of the 
>> 1,100-square-foot, L-shaped plot. After that, fall crops were planted, 
>> leading to Thursday's event.
>>
>> Mrs. Obama started the garden in March, saying she wanted to use it to 
>> talk about the importance of eating a nutritious diet and show what
>good, 
>> fresh food tastes like. She said it cost about $180 to prepare the soil 
>> and plant the seeds and seedlings.
>>
>>