The White House Garden

During World War II, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt led the war effort on the home front by establishing a victory garden at the White House. Nearly six decades later, another vegetable garden sprouted on White House grounds to promote Lady Michelle Obama's cause of reducing childhood obesity by encouraging youngsters to eat a healthy diet loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables. 

Fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, which has had its own garden since 2001, have helped Mrs. Obama dig and tend the garden and harvest the produce. The students also work with chefs in the White House Kitchen to prepare and cook what they've grown. Some food from the garden finds its way into formal White House dinners and the Obama's family meals; the rest is donated to a local kitchen that serves the homeless.

The garden features 55 varieties of vegetables, some from seeds handed down from the nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson. All are grown organically, fertilized with White House compost. Beneficial insects, such as ladybugs and mantises, help control pets.

Mrs. Obama, who notes that the project was inspired in part by her desire to improve her own children's diet, says, "The Garden is an important introduction to what I hope will be a new way that our country thinks about food".