TIME for OSU to name their purple tomato...Obamato tomato!! Thanks to the White House for listening to the people and planting a garden on the White House Lawn!!

Dear President Obama, We're All Ears for Ways to Change
This is my neighbor, Dolly the donkey, who I ran this idea past before I posted this. She liked it! So here goes. . .



But we need you to start the change in your own backyard (or front yard)!!
So, here's what I'm proposing -with help from a few people like this guy and help from the people with names on this petition Victory Gardens 2.0


This is Roger Doiron from Maine. He's a normal guy who loves to garden and he has a big idea to persuade you, President Obama, to turn the White House lawn into a garden. It's not a new idea, there have been gardens formerly on the White House lawn. In the 1940's Eleanor Roosevelt inspired millions of people to garden by turning up the soil on the White House lawn.

Why Should You Invest in Victory Garden 2.0??

Look at how the public clamors to look like and emulate presidential folks. Even I recall seeing Michelle in that affordable black and white dress on the
"The View," and then spying the same dress in the window of a shop in my town. I thought, 'I want one of those Michelle Obama dresses,' and I almost ran out and tried it on. According to news reports, I wasn't the only one: "women started pouring into the retail chain's stores, clamoring for the $148 dress designed by Donna Ricco," The WSJ reported. Your example is powerful, even in simple things like clothes...consider how much Research in Motion, the maker of the Blackberry has made in sales due to your plugs about their device. What could you have charged if you were a celebrity and not a public figure? "More than $25 million, marketing experts say, and maybe as much as $50 million," says Top Tech News.

So, no disputing the power of example here.... well, President and Mrs Obama, forget about fashionable clothes and electronic devices, show Americans that you believe in the power of self-reliance, which for many (even for those millions who have been laid off), can come through planting a home garden. Get your hands dirty by helping plant a garden on the White House lawn.

We the people, of the United State of America, are happy to help harvest our own food, instead of wait for handouts...

President Obama, this photo is from a strawberry farm in Oregon. Just think of how empowering it would feel to be able to put a sign like this on the White House lawn!! Telling people where to go... to harvest their own food, that is!



Building Community!

There's nothing better for building community that gardening together, sharing food, harvesting, thinning plants, weeding, digging and getting your hands in the soil!

Here's my neighbor's garden this summer, I spent a lot of time here helping her pull beans, thin beets, dig potatoes, and pick squash blossoms and tomatoes. I also did a lot of harvesting for meals. I developed a close relationship to this piece of land and also to the people who worked in this garden together.


A Hybridized Tomato Named After You!


Here's my friend Todd's daughter, her baby and his research project: the purple tomato!

As part of the deal, if you decide to plant a garden on the White House lawn, we'll get a botanist to breed a special "heirloom" tomato for you, a hybridized tom that could be named Obamato Tomato. Think of how many people would clamor to grow this tomato in their own yards. It could be something like this purple tomato at OSU they are trying to breed with higher levels of anthocyanin- the compound that makes blueberries and purple fruits, well, purple.

White House Compost!

You could ask the White House Kitchen to save all their (non-meat) food scraps and heave them into a big pile for composting.


White House compost, think of the market value on that stuff.... but you wouldn't sell it, you'd turn it into your soil.








Chickens for the Kids to Tend

You could get a cool-looking bunch of chickens and ask Sasha and Malia to help take care of them. The chickens could eat some of the food scraps and then lay beautiful eggs like these (eggs of all colors, not just white.... how inclusive!)



White House Biofuel!

You could even save all the fryer grease from all those White House parties that serve up deep-fried dishes... and turn it into biofuel- this fish shack in Newport does that:








Clean Energy! Bike to Get Around!!
President and Mrs Obama, you could bike around the White House to check on your garden and wear shirts like this while doing it. I can get you a few free shirts just like this: should I have them Fed Ex-ed??

Creation of Useful Government Jobs

You could create a handful of new purposeful government jobs unlike some of the ones now that just require workers to smile nicely while wearing outlandish accessories.



Here's some examples of kinds of jobs you might offer:

1) Secretary of Soil Science
2) Chief of Compost
3) Undersecretary Seed Saver
4) Officer of the Peas

Do it Because Aldo Would Applaud You

In closing, I'd like to quote a hero of mine.. Aldo Leopold.

"There is, as yet, no sense of pride in the husbandry of wild plants and animals, no sense of shame in the proprietorship of a sick landscape. We tilt windmills in belief of conservation in convention halls and editorial offices, but on the back forty we disclaim even owning a lance."

The White House lawn is sick land, please make it wild again with growing plants in an organic garden! You won't regret it!

Sincerely,
Citizen of the United States, resident of small-town Oregon
Jenie Skoy



Poster showing a cartoon from the Chicago Evening Post. . . Feed yourself. Be a soldier of the soil. . . Food will win the war. 1918 (source)

Paradise Found
Oregon: Land of Milk and Honey


Flowers in Bloom This is someone's yard and it felt like heaven.


Ripe Veggies

Why I'm living in Oregon for the summer

For those of you who weren't aware, I just moved to Oregon for the summer. I'm going to stay until blackberry season at least and may stay longer or move to Portland if I can find that dream job (or one that will offer insurance and a steady paycheck... I'm a little tired of freelance writing).

A few things I love about this area:

It gets dark at night. I don't miss the artificial lights of the city. Tonight I hung my clothes by moonlight in my backyard (I know, they'll have dew all over them in the morning... but I'll take them off in the afternoon.)

I love the markets. There's this great little co-op that has 1200 local foods

a cool little buffet that has gourmet meals you can buy per pound, a bulk section and unusual local foods like dried seaweed



And my favorite new icecream called Coconut Bliss.

They seem to care more about the environment here. Many people bike everywhere. The air is clean and smells like lilacs, it's so refreshing. This co-op does some great sustainable things like have a composting bin onsite and a place where you can throw your plastic so it can be re-used I LOVE THIS.

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People are more carefree here

What I could live without
Sometimes, I must admit, the hippie thing does wear on me. Where did all of these people come from? Some guy yesterday was wearing a tie-dyed skirt and was playing a long-necked lute thing? What's that? A Sitar? Why does he play it and where did he get it? My roommate likes to call these people the term Trustafarians.

But I do like the fact that people can get away with walking around barefoot, wearing flower wreaths on their heads and talking about things like the fairies that live in their attics.



A couple at a folk festival in Eugene earlier today.


Below: A woman at the May Day festival at a Waldorf school. The school is situated between several farmer's markets along one of the back highways.


I can drive along a few routes and find farm-fresh produce. This market north of town.



I stopped here on the first day it was open and bought some artichokes, rhubarb, lettuce and radishes.