On the Road For Change

Patton, a self-described conservative Republican, was impressed, however. "I thought it was a different stop for someone to pitch a cause like that. We're pretty cowboy here," she says. Patton put out a local press release and booked Simon and Gustowarow on the local Fox morning news program. Then she called a friend and asked him to design some T-shirts for them.

"My approach is a little different than theirs," she says. "But I just appreciate what they are doing. My question is: Who would be against this?"

Good question. There is a history of agriculture at the White House. Its first tenant, John Adams, planted a garden shortly after taking up residence in 1800. Woodrow Wilson brought in sheep to mow and fertilize the White House lawn in 1918, an effort to conserve resources for the war effort. In 1943, over the objection of the Agriculture Department, Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden, inspiring millions of Americans to grow their own food.

Since then, however, only herbs have been grown at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Jimmy Carter, a Georgia farmer who extolled the virtues of gardening during his campaign, declined calls in 1978 to plant a vegetable garden at the White House. The issue has not been raised again seriously until now.

The WHO Farm petition goes further than other similar calls to action. Simon and Gustowarow want schoolchildren and disabled Americans to work in the White House garden, a request that might pose a tricky security challenge. (Simon says including more participants in the project will make it more viable.) They also ask, among other things, that the gardeners plant heirloom seeds and use compost made from food waste from the kitchens that serve the White House, congressional buildings and Supreme Court.

He and Gustowarow plan to upload their petition to http://www.change.gov, the Obama-Biden transition Web site, before the inauguration, then send it to the White House by mail. (The petition will remain open, Simon says, until there is a garden on the White House lawn. It can be signed at http://www.thewhofarm.org.)

In the new year, Gustowarow is hoping to find a piece of land to farm. Simon will continue on his quest. "I'm not terribly optimistic this will happen the day [the Obamas] move into the White House," Simon says. "I think we've planted a seed -- no pun intended -- that opens up the possibility."

Coming tomorrow: Adrian Higgins contemplates what a White House vegetable garden might entail, in the Home section.