{"id":2136,"date":"2012-06-13T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T07:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/book\/book-review-167\/"},"modified":"2023-11-01T11:38:21","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T18:38:21","slug":"american-grown","status":"publish","type":"book","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/book\/american-grown\/","title":{"rendered":"American Grown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"book\"First Lady Michelle Obama’s new book, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America<\/a> (Crown Publishers, 2012) has much to say about gardening as a learning process. A novice gardener, she doesn’t hesitate to admit that not all of the Kitchen Garden efforts succeeded on the first try: there were raised berms that succumbed to foot traffic and were replaced with untreated wooden boxes, troubles with cutworms, and trials and tribulations with pumpkins. But her motivation to create a food garden on the South Lawn with the participation of numerous horticulturists, chefs, and schoolchildren, has resulted in a beautiful, productive example for every aspiring urban farmer (even someone without a staff of dozens or a large growing space!).<\/p>\n

For readers who want to cultivate a closer relationship to the source of the food we eat (either by growing our own or by supporting small farms), this book is a good starting point. The book, which opens with a brief history of gardens at the White House, is arranged by season, and includes plans, descriptions of techniques and hands-on growing experiences, and recipes. Various experts on the garden staff contribute parts of the text. Seattle makes two appearances in the section on “How Our Gardens Grow Stronger Communities,” with a page on Picardo Farm P-Patch, and a historic photo of Pike Place Market. The book ends with a resource list and bibliography.<\/p>\n

If you are curious about the source of initial hesitation\/opposition to the first White House beehive ever, here’s a hint: the beehive is sited not far from the basketball court!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Lady Michelle Obama’s new book, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America (Crown Publishers, 2012) has much to say about gardening as a learning process. A novice gardener, she doesn’t hesitate to admit that not all of the Kitchen Garden efforts succeeded on the first try: there were raised berms that succumbed to foot traffic and were replaced with untreated wooden boxes, troubles with cutworms, and trials and tribulations with pumpkins. But…<\/p>\n

Continue reading American Grown<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","keyword":[22,309],"class_list":["post-2136","book","type-book","status-publish","hentry","keyword-reviews","keyword-urban-agriculture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book\/2136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/book"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=2136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}