Edible estates are a growing trend at homes around the country as food costs rise, along with food-safety concerns and environmental awareness, but there are some who think we shouldn't be confined to our own lawns. Eat the View is a nonprofit campaign to plant healthy, edible landscapes in high-impact, high-visibility places, and is petitioning for a vegetable garden on the lawn of most visible home in the country, the White House. I myself recently volunteered at one of these high-visibility gardens, San Francisco's Slow Food Nation Victory Garden, which sits in front of City Hall. The premise behind Eat the View's campaign is that as "America's House," the White House should set a positive example for the country and the world. The fresh, healthy, and environmentally-friendly produce grown in the garden would go to the White House kitchen as well as local food pantries. There is currently already a staff of 13 gardeners and groundskeepers, who maintain everything from the Rose Garden to the presidential putting green. And, it would not be the first time the White House had a green thumb: in the 1940s, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt grew a victory garden of her own. To see a video about the subject, read more.

Do you have your own vegetable, fruit, or herb garden? What do you think about this petition?