I read in the newspaper that Alice Waters suggested at the recent Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco that there should be an organic garden on the White House lawn.
That stimulated my memory, and I remembered having that discussion with colleagues back at Organic Gardening magazine at least 30 years ago. “No, not on the White House lawn,” someone said. “The only people who will see it are visiting dignitaries and the President’s family. We should put it in the National Mall where ordinary people can see it. It should be a teaching garden to show people what organic gardening is all about.”
Right. So I was given the task of devising such a garden. Hey, Jimmy Carter was President and we had managed to get a plank into the 1976 Democratic platform calling for increased funding for research into organics. It seemed do-able.
Recently, going through some old papers, I found the design for that long-lost garden. It never got built because in 1980, Ronald Reagan became President and appointed Earl Butz Secretary of Agriculture and that was the end of that. No money for organic research, and especially no “teaching garden” for the National Mall. Heaven forbid people learn that there’s an alternative to big chemical ag.
But looking at the design now, it still looks like a good plan. A giant circle, 120 feet or more in diameter, has a circular area in its center, about 40 feet in diameter. This inner circle is centered on a pool for aquaculture, where tilapia or catfish might be raised. Around the pool are disease-resistant dwarf fruit trees—cherry, apple, pear, peach, and apricot. Around the circumference of this inner circle are benches for visitors to sit, a shed for hoses and spigots, a tool shed, seven types of compost bins: chicken wire, slat, rock wall, 3-stage bin, an aerobic bin, a 14-day bin, and a bin for raw composting materials. There’s also a large container for finished compost.
The outer ring of the giant circle is divided into 16 segments, each 40 feet long and eight feet across at the inner part and 24 feet across at the circumference—in other words, each segment contains 7,680 square feet of space. Remember, this is a teaching garden and the segments are each devoted to teaching visitors the how-to and why-to of what’s included. Here are the segments and what they’re devoted to:
Segment one: herb gardening—culinary herbs, healing herbs, herbs for dyeing, herbs for sachets and scent.
Segment two: grapes and information on home winemaking, mulched cabbages, potatoes in leaf mulch, onions and their relatives (leeks, garlic, scallions, chives) and how to grow them.
Segment three: worm culture and a box for collecting worm castings (manure), earthworm nursery placed under rabbit hutches so droppings stimulate worm production, and various kinds of annual flowers.
Segment four: perennial flowers, a plot of melons, squashes, cucumbers, and eggplant and sweet and hot peppers.
Segment five: insect control, including weeds and flowers that attract beneficial insects, bird houses with a bird feeder, birdbaths, an insectiary for raising ladybugs, lacewings, and other beneficial larvae, information on natural insect control.
Segment six: lawn care, including water-conserving strategies, the use of zoysia grass, a rock garden of alpine ornamentals, and demonstration garden of growing top varieties of root crops like beets, sweet potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, radishes, turnips, and more.
Segment seven: an area for experimentation with electroculture, music for plants, and other outside-the-box ideas. Trellis strategies for growing raspberries, blackberries, and other brambleberries. How to grow strawberries and their various types and varieties. Growing blueberries. And a section that’s allowed to grow naturally in native weeds, and eventually, shrubs and trees.
Segment eight: cold frames, hot frames, trench gardening, hot beds, A-frame greenhouses, plus soybean culture and home-made tofu.
Segment nine: demonstration gardens for plowing, tilling, cultivating. Trench composting. Sheet composting. Rose culture and their low-maintenance types.
Segment 10: demonstration of cover crops and green manuring. Growing and harvesting grains like wheat, oats, and barley. A threshing floor and a box for chaff storage and ways to use chaff (the husks of grains).
Segment 11: beekeeping with hives, a set-up to gather honey, plantings that attract bees (buckwheat, herbs like thyme, etc.).
Segment 12: types of corn available today: old-fashioned varieties, sugary enhanced varieties, ornamental corn. Information and demonstration area about the relationship of soil and health.
Segment 13: soil testing and how and why to do it at home. An area of edible wild plants native to the mid-Atlantic states. How to grow kale, chard, and spinach and bring them through a winter alive.
Segment 14: interplanting to disrupt insect feeding. Companion plantings. Biodynamic gardening and what that’s about.
Segment 15: mulching variations and their value. Demonstrations include endives in rock mulch, lettuce in straw mulch, celery in newspaper mulch, radishes in leaf mulch, peas in living clover mulch, beans in coca bean hulls, pole beans mulched with peat moss, shrubs like black and red currants and gooseberries with wood chip mulch.
Segment 16: tomato culture and easy tomato trellising and bins. Perennial edibles like rhubarb, asparagus, and horseradish. A chicken coop and how to use chickens to create the best fertilizer in the world.
Maybe its time has finally come. Think of the hundreds of thousands of people, kids and adults, who could learn about organic gardening and catch the gardening bug.
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See also Jeff’s Farmers’ Market Tips
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Jeff Cox is author of The Organic Cook’s Bible and The Organic Food Shopper’s Guide, and numerous other cooking, gardening, and wine books, and lives in Sonoma County, California.
Image Credit: Jeff Cox
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