Monday, April 27, 2009

Get Out Those Gardening Tools

From a Government executive post on the USDA garden:
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan "... also repeated Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's challenge to USDA facilities worldwide to create similar gardens and create healthier landscapes. When asked if the gardens at USDA facilities around the world have to be organic, Merrigan replied she understands that organic is not possible everywhere because she comes from New England, where it is hard to raise some crops organically. Gardening methods "are not going to be dictated decisions from headquarters," she said. That should come as a relief to USDA's workers in Farm Service Agency, Rural Development and Natural Resources and Conservation Service offices in nearly every county in the country, as well as Foreign Agricultural Service offices overseas. The workers will undoubtedly want their gardens to be blooming by whatever method when Vilsack and Merrigan visit and ask to see them."
Of course, USDA owns few, if any, of its buildings. (I'm not even sure they own the lawn to the Administration Building and there is no lawn to the South Building.) So the question becomes whether the landlords will agree to gardens and if they will charge for such agreement.

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