Shutdown hits White House garden

[WASHINGTON] Oh, Mrs Obama, how does your garden grow?

During the government shutdown, apparently wildly. The White House Kitchen Garden, planted with great fanfare by the First Lady and the National Park Service in April 2009, is now gangly and weedy.

The garden's unruly state was first reported by Eddie Gehman Kohan, who blogs about White House food policy and has posted day-by-day updates of the garden during the shutdown. Wild mushrooms have begun to grow, she wrote. Weeds have sprouted. Sweet potatoes are unpicked. It is not the usual state of the picture-perfect garden, which had its own spread in Better Homes and Gardens two years ago.