Much has been made that the new White House garden is the first one since Eleanor Roosevelt's WWII-era Victory Garden. That doesn't mean, however, that nothing of note happened in the years since Eleanor left the White House. Some trivia:
• In 1974, President Ford called for people (mainly farmers) to "grow more and waste less" food in his famous (often derided) Whip Inflation Now speech.• The Carter administration declined requests to plant a vegetable garden, citing security, legal, and staffing issues. ("White House Has No Vegetable Garden This Year." New York Times; 28 May 1978)• When Chef Alice Waters asked the Clintons to plant a garden, they replied they had a small rooftop garden. The Bush administration kept it.• The differences between the new White House garden and the one maintained by Clinton and Bush include: 1) size; 2) visibility; and 3) the fact that surplus will be donated to charity.Got more trivia? Feel free to share!
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