In Handsworth Park - three little birds

Oliver, our grandson, in Handsworth Park, with Guy, Amy and, our friend, Liz expecting a daughter soon

Liz came to us with Amy and Guy and Oliver on Sunday. A dropsical blanket of cloud lay over the city, ragged underneath, releasing showers. It was Carnival in Handsworth Park, without the right weather for parades or dancing. Glimpses, instead, of goose-bumped flesh in sequined motley under drizzle. With intervals of downpour. Security - police and G4 - were everywhere. We came in around 3.30, strolling from home to the Hamstead Road gate. Lin was chosen for random search, patted down and bag checked. We strolled and milled between vast speakers vibrating my chest cavity. There seemed to be lots of fat people about and the music was, at least for an hour, a recorded Marley medley, and just for a moment - with "Every little thing gonna be all right" - that wonderful song of many wonderful songs lulled me away from my small troubles.

Don't worry about a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin': "Don't worry about a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Perch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', "This is my message to you-ou-ou:"

Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right...

We waited for the Carnival Parade ending according to notices at 4.30 in the park, then learned there’d been just six floats; that the parade had set out early along Soho Road, arrived in the park at four and dispersed – a contrast with better days when everything and everyone was reliably late as part of the style. Susan Green, long time part of Handsworth, a neighbour and friend writes on FB:

Carnival was dreadful this year. The worst ever. I had friends visiting from out of town and I was embarrassed. Carnival has now been totally hi jacked by those who have no interest in the art form but just want to have a Jamaican style dance hall event with booming sound systems in our park and use carnival as a fig leaf. Around tea time - well after carnival had ended they turned up in droves for the afters party in the park. They do not support carnival, they can't even be bothered to turn up in the afternoon to support it. My heart goes out to those such as Carnival artist Professor Black who work such long hours to try and keep Carnival going but who get little proper support from BCC or indeed from the Carnival committee. if they want to run a Jamaican dance hall cultural event they should be made to apply for support in their own right and make their own arguments for it instead of hi jacking Carnival . Simmer Down the reggae festival run last month in the same location was well organised, safe, an excellent family event with great live music and those of us living on the doorstep didn't have to suffer loud sounds until late at night and aggressive crowds milling about in the streets after all the so called security and cops had clocked off.

Professor Black and some of his designs

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A note from Paul Peacock...re the ebook version of his biography of my stepfather...

The Jack Book is now online:Jack Hargreaves a Portrait 

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There is an apple tree bearing fruit; one marrow the size of a courgette; a crop of Jerusalem artichokes, a few rows of potatoes, a rhubarb, a few broad beans, a frame of runner beans - and of course there's flowers, lavender, buddleia, and small trees, pears, plum and cherry, so far still fruitless. My shed stands and in the last day I've done some mowing of the encroaching wild grass wild flower meadow that covers so much of my neglected allotment.

Γένεσις 3.19: Ἐν ἱδρῶτι τοῦ προσώπου σου φάγῃ τὸν ἄρτον σου ἕως τοῦ ἀποστρέψαι σε εἰς τὴν γῆν ἐξ ἧς ἐλήμφθης ὅτι γῆ εἶ καὶ εἰς γῆν ἀπελεύσῃ

I've got excuses for this neglect. None convinces me. But nor am I ashamed. I just know I have to persevere, continue learning;  be inventive. For over a year now, things have not been so good for the whole site. A small complaint by a friend about the 'remoteness' of our committee was met with indignant defensiveness. Clive Birch, who I've long known, secretary of the Birmingham and District Allotments Confederation became involved as a mediator. As things proceeded I, normally inclined to be partisan, wrote a note to Clive and X (the complainant):

Dear X and Clive
STRUGGLES ON THE VICTORIA JUBILEE
Thanks both of you for trying to resolve the real difficulties that exist and for showing respect.
I wish I could help but I feel that unless I take part in the work of our rather overburdened committee I’m not entitled to criticise.
We have a shared problem, yet it all began so excitingly when we opened the site in June 2010.

Opening day of the Victoria Jubilee Allotments from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

In these difficult economic times there is a serious lack of take up of plots on the VJA. This makes all allotments vulnerable - given the continued interest of developers in urban green field sites and government pressures to create more housing that does not infringe green belts or in-fill our  suburbs.
I also think there are VJA plot holders who, being new to allotments, have been discouraged by a mix of ill weather over two years and our challenging topsoil (Adrian Stagg admitted the developer had done an unsatisfactory job on this score and that BCC were minded to delay opening the site, but ‘we’ urged him to let us get started.).
On top of this, decisions by the site committee have not been based on talking to as many gardeners as possible. I also think that BCC Allotments section have for all sorts of understandable reasons been unable to give us much help with self-management. This is a problem across the UK of course.
The hedge cutting on the VJA (a familiar landmark, shelter and windbreak which we had earlier campaigned to save from the developer’s bulldozers) was a source of contention (given so many other more important things to be achieved like attracting more plot holders, helping those who were failing and holding site visitor events). The reasons given for cutting back the hedge and the last tree on the site - albeit a humble sycamore - are unconvincing, but that whole business was simply a straw on an overladen camel. We are surrounded by some of the most beautiful greenery in the city right next to Handsworth Park!
The VJA committee has struggled with high turnover, and lack of help from other gardeners, so that as well as isolating themselves they have themselves been isolated. Chicken and egg. I am as much a part of this as anyone.
The failure to change notices on the noticeboard, after two years even, is just a symptom. We need a special kind of rare leadership that will stir enthusiasm, keep up spirits and show inventive and creative ways to get the VJA back on the map within our community. I guess, given the right cues, we could all do it together! We badly need more sunshine among ourselves, and for relative novices, encouragement for the hard task of growing our own vegetables. There are a few brilliant gardeners on our site. I have already learned from them and they prove that good things can be achieved with hard work and perseverance, and some of the skills and craft too many of us are still struggling to acquire.
In short, Clive (and X) I think the VJA shares a problem of low morale and its consequences, but I’m sure that with decency and civility and generosity we will be able to put these difficult times behind us.
Right now we all need all the encouragement we can give and get.
Thanks for your continued interest Clive, and thanks X for having the bottle to raise your concerns which are not yours alone even tho’ at times that is how it must feel. My best wishes also to the committee who must be feeling ‘got at’. Please persevere. darkness before the dawn etc.
Kindest regards and best wishes and hopes of spreading good will. Please stick with us Clive! Feel free to call me in case I can add more to the drift of this letter. Simon. Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG)

An email from Clive to X on 2 Aug:

X. Your comment ref fraud are noted and we can agree. Ref minutes of a meeting it is essential for their acceptance as a "true record" otherwise denial of validity of contents could ensue. We agree that open communication is essential but that information has to be correct and not misleading. Open committee meetings allow any tenant to see what is going on. Hedge - no dispute that it was a mess, BCC contractor has full responsibility! I agree with Simon's view that plot holders need a boost and committee and individuals can do this. Best wishes, Clive 

This BBC news story in June gives some context - Allotment keeping proves no walk in the garden. Betty Farruggia, the superb secretary at Walsall Road Allotments in Perry Barr is quoted saying there was a quarter plot vacant there, for the first time in 6 years.

"Until recently we've always had a waiting list of at least 12 people...The council did increase the rent but only one person left because of that so I don't really think the cost is a factor." Rent varies depending on the size of the plot, ranging from £40 to £90 per year. It is half price for people aged over 60. Ms Farruggia said weather played a part in people giving up allotments, especially when "disheartening" disease ruined harvests. But tending an allotment is also more difficult than expected..."Sometimes it's simply that people don't realise how hard it is - they think they might like to have an allotment but that it'll look after itself. "They can end up taking it on and then not coming back."

A while back I filmed myself working with an azada and before that with a mattock...

Working our allotment on the VJA from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

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In distant Ano Korakiana...a party for the Pantocrator, Του Παντοκρατόρου το πανηγύρι...

Η καρδιά του χωριού χθες το βράδυ χτυπούσε στον Άη-Γιώργη… Εκεί όπου επαναλήφθηκε με επιτυχία το πανηγύρι του «Παντοκρατόρου», από την εκείθεν Ενορία. Η μία πλευρά της αυλής γέμισε από ταπεζο-καθίσματα και κόσμο, ο ενδιάμεσος χώρος χρησιμοποιήθηκε ως πίστα χορού και ακριβώς απέναντι «στήθηκε» η ορχήστρα των «Φαιάκων», που κράτησε συντροφιά στους πανηγυρίζοντες έως μετά τα μεσάνυχτα. Αλλά και έξω από τον περιτειχισμένο περίβολο, δεν ήταν λίγος ο κόσμος. Εκεί εξάλλου είχαν στηθεί οι ψησταριές και το «ποτοπωλείο», δύο σημεία στα οποία σχηματίζονταν συνεχώς ουρές από κόσμο… Όπως αποτυπώνεται και στη φωτογραφία, οι διοργανωτές, παρά την κούραση ένοιωθαν ευχαριστημένοι από το αποτέλεσμα…

The wooden bridge to the garden behind the house has been repaired; a new back door fitted. Upstairs walls have been repaired and painted, sources of damp, given the wet weather this year and last, look to have been dealt with...

...though Lin detests the new windows, more Royston's choice than her spec. I'm relieved the old wooden frames, some rotting, all difficult to open, have been replaced. Apart from furnishing and carpeting, further work will be downstairs starting with the bathroom and stable-door porch and hall - a right mess. There's also as Royston points out a great need to allow the house to get more sun, so we'll go down again in a few days to use do some urgent estate work on the encroaching forest.

And in Handsworth we've been giving attention to another garden. Handsworth Helping Hands was asked by the householder to see what could be done to clear, tidy and improve a back garden and frontage in a Handsworth terrace off Rookery Road...

...in 4½ hours HHH cleared and swept a small frontage and removed a heap of tangled weeds and thick grass at the rear, but to slab or turf to give play-space, the soil needs digging over and levelling. We also tidied and swept an alley and removed cut green waste and rubbish entangled in the greenery...

Νῦν ἀπολύεις - Victoria Jubilee Allotments

At last!

Yes indeed! At last the waiting is over. Επιτέλους η αναμονή τελείωσε.

(Note: Adrian Stagg has reminded me that 'first come, first served basis' refers to those who added their names to a short list over the last year; not to anyone just turning up. This tends to strengthen a rumour that the Council's short list of those wishing to work plots on the VJA may already exceed the number of plots - a problem that tends to be resolved by halving plots and the inevitability of drop-outs)

We can turn from campaigning to digging, planting, growing and harvesting our own food. Last year Lin and I made a compact to share a plot with our neighbour Rachel Chiu and family, reckoning our diaries overlap enough to co-operates while being separate enough to allow a division of labour.

I spoke to Rachel this evening - just back from work, heading for a meet of the Handsworth Park Association. "See you Saturday", "What can we plant this time of year?" We pondered this. "We're away most of the summer" "But we're here until the end of August." "I think we can work on getting the soil right; perhaps get a shed put up, and plant early potatoes that'd be ready for spring 2010 along with turnips and...."

With the new allotments becoming available, it is to be hoped that the playing fields - two soccer, one cricket - plus children's playground plus changing pavilion that came with the 2004 Planning Gain Agreement (S106A), will be up and running this year (see Help Me Investigate).

2003 plan - N/01514/03/FUL - submitted to Birmingham City Council by Westbury Homes (enlarge)

E-mail from Clive Birch, Chair of Birmingham & District Allotments Association:

Been a long battle, am meeting tenants on 10th July with view to formation of allotment association.

Meeting at The Sons of Rest in Handsworth Park ~ 10 July 2010

E-mail from Adrian Stagg:

Simon, Morning. Its down to the plotholders now to make the site vibrant and hopefully one of the best in the City. We've done all we can to facilitate a high spec allotments site. Its there for people to enjoy and make their own. Adrian

E-mail from Stephen Hartland, Chair of Birmingham's Victorian Society

Well done Simon. What a way to celebrate HM's official birthday.

E-mail from Betty at Walsall Road Allotments to whom I'd passed the news:

Dear Simon. No, I hadn't heard the good news - congratulations! How many plots will be available on Saturday, and do you have a waiting-list? I hope all goes well for you and that lots of prospective plotholders turn up. Betty

E-mail from an old friend:

At last indeed. Simon was a(n even) young(er) man when he started campaigning for this development 20 years ago! And along the way prevented the site becoming entirely housing. Anyway, megathanks from myself and no doubt several dozen others for his foresight and industry, and likewise in respect of the adjoining park which he did so much to get restored, even though of course others have had a hand in making these things happen. Robin

..and another, from Zarina Bhatia:

Wow! This was just yesterday, I shall visit the site on one of my walks to the Park soon. What achievement for our so pluralistic community of Handsworth! BRAVO, Simon!

and from The Stirrer:

fantastic - well done. Adrian Goldberg

www.thestirrer.com

From Karen Leach, Coordinator Localise West Midlands:

fantastic news! Sorry we (bfoe) weren't much help towards the end but brilliant to hear your persistence paid off! best wishes. Karen

From Basil Hylton, Handsworth Cricket Club, long term successful campaigner for sport in Handsworth and beyond:

Hi Simon, Congratulations. The community owes you a debt of gratitude for your hard tenacious slog at this matter. Well done as gardeners can now look to securing their plots and to the fruits of their labour. Wish that the issue around cricket was going well. But then, that is a long story. You take care, and all the best. Basil

From our old childminder, Pauline Gallagher:

May the grass be green and the plots be vibrant- Well done Simon !!!!

From Ano Korakiana:

Hi Simon. Well done on the allotmen'ts side of the fence. Enjoy your digging and your fruits of hard labour. Mark.

I phoned Paul Peacock in the Pennines. He reminded me it would be tricky to get seed potatoes, but try Pentland Javelins. some turnips. lettuce, beetroot...

Previous air photo of the site before building - the old Victoria Jubilee Allotments

Air photo two years ago showing rough location of the new VJA

Nick Booth's 2000 documentary 'Losing the Plot', a BBC Midlands Report about the midway stage of the campaign to save the VJA

X-ref: Democracy Street on 'the politics of urban green space'

* * * *

I saw this pilot logo recently - for the highest quality olive oil from Corfu - a product in mind, not yet in production. I liked the Septinsular lion against Corfu's verdant green, coach green, British racing green - plus the yellow of the lion like sun shining through a bottle of oil:

* * * Meanwhile sheep shearing and wool preparation in Ano Korakiana....and I 've been pointed by Aris - who designed the logo above - towards the work of Maria Couroucli...and - scrolling down this list of research projects supported by the Latsis Foundation I see this work on local memory by Helen Hristopoulou of the Ionian University on Urban Collective Memory through Time and Space:

Urban memory is a form of collective memory developed about a place through time. Generations pass memories about their birthplaces to one another mainly through verbal narrations and testimonials of significant events occurred in the past, usually pertaining to a restricted audience of family members or members of similar small social groups. As a result, such valuable memories are isolated, not interacting with each other to designate collective memories, eventually fading away as time goes by. The project will provide a database for documenting and preserving collections of memories. Such a database will be then utilized to issue representations of Corfu memories, offering an educational environment for children and pupils. Finally, the project will offer a web-based application environment to disseminate recorded Corfu memories in terms of interactive 3D Maps, in a web context employing various semantic tags and subject descriptors to facilitate end-users to browse urban collective memory through time and space dimensions.

Monday morning

An email this morning from Clive Birch, Chairman of BDAC:

Simon, Intention is still to open this year - proposed time is during national allotments week in August. Clive

That's 10-16 August this year. So we're back on the road - with the usual caution. I phoned Rachel to pass on Clive's message to her and others.

* * * With help I've been pointed to where I can get my hands on Eleni Calligas' thesis - at the Institute of Historical Research. I shall visit on my way to the National Archives on Thursday - at least to start reading. As for the search for the village petition to the High Commission asking the English not to leave, a document which may or may not exist, I may have another source in Maria Paschalidi researching the construction of colonial identities 'the Ionian islands in British imagination 1815-1864'. There's even a hint she might have seen the 'paper' that Kostas and Thanassis have asked me to try and find.

* * *

In another dimension my imagination is being fermented by an exchange on Flickr about Execution Island. I'm led into the pitiable space of Civil War, Occupation and fratricide, the stone years and moral ambiguity around the naming of Democracy Street. Her moniker is Kerkira. She writes English like a native and poses sensitive questions, tells me more about things that happened - how Miki Theodorakis visits the island every year, to remember his brother who was killed there.

Did you hear, my Constantine, what the little birds are saying?

They are little birds and let them sing, they are little birds and let them say.

And a little further on their way other little birds are telling them:

“Isn’t pity and unfair, very strange,

the alive to walk along with the dead?”!

-Did you hear, my Constantine, what the little birds are saying?

That the alive walk along with the dead....

To Scotland

Lin lay fast asleep. I left the house in Handsworth with Oscar and my case and strolled in the Spring mist to our bus stop to begin a journey to the Highlands for a week. By eight the sun was out and the sky blue and the air fresh. The Thursday morning train to Edinburgh left on time amid the morning hurry at New Street; few on board so I could make myself a travelling space. I'm acquiring patience, accepting and even enjoying intervals between things - GPs' receptions, hospitals, station canteens, airport lounges. I wasn't good at this. I'm learning. I'd made up a picnic for the nine hour journey to the Highlands. As the train hurried north, free of irritants, I missed the marmy rationing Lin likes to do, teasing "We're not having food until after Preston" or "not until after 11.30!" On Thursday I doled myself Bombay Mix, then fresh seeded rolls spread with butter, laid with mozzarella and salami, and sipped from a miniature of Chardonnay, reading Robert Wilson's A Darkening Stain, gazing on the landscape, dazzled now and then by the sun, chatting with amiable fellow travellers asking about Oscar, as friendly as ever to all in our carriage. At Edinburgh, so bright and warm compared to our evening stop here in January, I wandered up to the Mile and stood on the steps for a smoke by the Scott Memorial and a gaze on the spring crowd - purged of misanthropy.A Scotrail train afforded even more space for my stretched legs and renewed picnic, with this time a meal for Oscar, as we continued north over the Forth Bridge, through Perth, Dunkeld, Pitlochry, Blair Atholl, the boar and the sow, still lightly snowed, before Drumochter Pass, Dalwhinnie, Kingussie, Aviemore - Oscar recognising familiar clues starts to squeak in anticipation, as after Carrbridge, where we don't stop, heather and braes rush by through cuttings and along embankments by the long slope to the Moray Firth bringing us, by five past five, to Inverness where I'm met by Mum with Lorri her driver and carer to head back up to Strathnairn and the dog's barking wagging licking sniffing reunion at Brin Croft. * * * E-mail from: Simon Baddeley to Ward Cllrs Kim Brom; Mahmood Hussain, cc: Alan Orr, Constituency Planning Officer, re progress on the Victoria Jubilee Allotments (VJA) 14/3/09

Dear Councillors Brom and Hussain To my great regret I can’t be back from London on time for this evening’s rollover item on the VJA. Please let me know if there’s any progress and what steps Alan Orr on behalf of the city council is taking to get things started or kept moving. He's not sent me any progress report since the last ward meeting. I know Charles Bate will try hard to be there, and that you as Councillors are as concerned as any of us about progress on the VJA S106A. Persimmon Homes who I’ve been monitoring on the web are still very much in business and so should be in a good position to get the S106A plans implemented. Meantime waiting lists on some allotments in Birmingham are, according to Clive Birch, Chairman of Birmingham and District Allotments Council (BDAC) up to five years long or just closed. I so hope we can make this happen! Yours truly, Simon, Handsworth Allotments Information Group

From Kim Brom the same evening. cc: ALAN: please make any amendments or clarify any omissions in the detail

Hi Simon. Alan kindly attended the Ward Committee and provided the following update: 1. Allotments. Work under way at the moment correcting ground levels and importing of top soil so it is of the correct type. 2. Sports pitches. Humps and hollows that have appeared are being surveyed next week with a view to decide the best way to rectify this. 3. Pavilion building. Building regs are being applied for. 4. Monies agreed to be given to BCC by the developers are being pursued. 5. The toddlers play area is an issue for some of the residents in the new development. The residents who live near this proposed new play area are suffering Anti-social behaviour whilst others who aren't affected by the ASB want the play area. However, one of the requirements of the planning permission for the houses was that a play area was provided. Hope this helps update things, Kim - sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

From: rachel chiu to Simon B re: Query about progress on the VJA - 14 March 2009

Hi Simon. I arrived slightly late as I was at the Handsworth Park Association meeting which started at 7.00pm. Councillor Brom said she was emailing you, so you will have had the latests up date, basically that contractors have started to level out the area and are expected tp continue further work next week. Lets see. I seem to recall you were interested in doing a plot share is this still the case? Rachel

From Simon to Rachel:

Thanks for going especially as Charles was unwell. I'm trying to retire = balancing jumping from my part-time lecturing before being pushed by a mixture of time and chance - and also wanting to spend about half my time with Lin in Greece, my half-brother's and sisters' country. We've no plans to leave Handsworth but this transhumance - a tradition in our family - gets in the way of tending an allotment. Were plot sharing to be possible and mutually agreeable it'd be my greatest pleasure to work my life around one - especially a plot on the VJA overlooking the park and St Mary's and so close to one home. Thanks for mentioning it. Best wishes, Simon (in Scotland for a week)

From Rachel:

I am sure we could come to an accommodation regarding an allotment share, as a family we are very flexible and would value the opportunity since we are very amateur gardeners - we have a lot of plants in our garden which have been put in often by John's mother, though our own veg patch is ours 100% and we have had some successes and failures! I am attending on a post grad course in your dept ...most enlightening as there are a couple of partners giving a community participatory and a psychodynamic focus as well as the policy perspective...To be honest it is not work that is it having the most impact but my thinking as to my involvement in the local area...whilst I have seen you at meeting we have never met or had a chat outside those arenas - So Simon and Lin it would be our family's pleasure to invite either or both of you over for a meal! We can talk about what our allotment dreams and I'd enjoy some insights into your personal experience of community involvement. Best Rachel

See Transition Cultures; see review of a book by Andre Viljoen on designing cities for growing food - the city as a farm - productive urban landscapes; allso Bill Mollison on Grave Danger of Falling Food and permaculture 'as the environmental crisis bites, those in the South will be increasingly in demand in the North, coming to teach us how to grow things. ‘CPULs’ shows that this is closer to becoming a reality, and that food security is becoming seen as as much of an issue for the developed West as for the rest of the world.' * * * My mother's accountant came for a drink on Friday, and, in passing, mentioned that this 'situation' - the worst he's known - was having it's worst impact on government because of the loss of tax revenue as people's share prices have fallen so. He scratched his head gently, said he had no answers, felt a bit sorry for Fred the Shred, who's Edinburgh neighbour in the Grange says "He's had to take his kids out of school. There are abusive notices papered all over his frontage. He's disappeared with his family." Reminds me of the subprime fury at AIG executive bonuses expressed the other day by US comedian Stephen Colbert who, to roars of audience approval, promised to lead "a torch and pitchfork wielding mob absent of all thought..." against AIG, who, incidentally, have provided my accident insurance for the last 9 years. Meanwhile my current heroine is Yvonne Froud, post mistress at Joy's Green, just over the valley from our place in Lydbrook, who's putting children's names on sweet wrappers to reduce litter. * * * We parked off the main Aberdeen Road, down a slip road most miss, where I unloaded and unfolded mum's wheelchair letting the three dogs leap from the back to scurry hopelessly but eagerly after the rabbits in the brambles pushing gently along the abandoned road that runs between the shore and the railway, enveloped in the grumble of the Inverness rush hour, chatting to the back of mum's head, enjoying the closer landscape of calm, as the tide slipped away from the firth's long shallows explored by waders, mallards and goldeneye, a swan pair with their cygnets, small gulls uk-uk-uk-ing at the terriers' intrusion. There'd been many sycamores coppiced beside the rails, clearing space for softer growth, showing views not seen before. "I like this walk. Things always look different," I said, "Everything's getting ready for spring. When you come up again in August, the further trees will be hidden by the closer green." * * * Oh happy day (It's the symbolism, stupid) Michelle Obama joins students from Bancroft Elementary School during a groundbreaking ceremony for the new White House Kitchen Garden in Washington..."My girls like vegetables more if they taste good," said Michelle Obama, looking almost too chic to get dirty in a belted sweater and black patent leather boots. "Especially if they're involved in planting it and picking it, they were willing to give it a try."...But Obama's seemingly simple move is seen by many as a political statement akin to Eleanor Roosevelt's 1943 victory garden. Food activists, led by the California chef and Chez Panisse founder Alice Waters, have been lobbying for an organic White House garden since 1993. Now they are celebrating what they call a new "victory" garden. It sent out a message... [Back to the future: 1 May 2009 ~ Obama's White House Garden spurs a race for other gardening firsts