The White House Kitchen Garden
Taking care of a sick kid opens up a little reading time, so I've been able to finish American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America , which Kirk picked up from the library a few weeks ago. As always, the best part of a gardening book is the photos, and this book has really beautiful ones, plus some nice renderings of the planting plans per season. There are also profiles of many other community gardens across the country, plus some seasonal recipes. I liked the fact that this book shared the learning curve of maintaining a big vegetable garden — apparently even having the National Park Service on your side doesn't guarantee that things always go right! I also picked up some ideas to improve our hoop houses over the winter. Check out this photo from obamafoodorama : These use giant wooden battens along the ground over which is rolled the ends of the plastic. Then those are held in place with sandbags. I'm not quite...