Victory! A Garden at the White House
By Vanessa Richins
We’ve been talking about it for months as we followed Eat The View’s campaign.
They, along with many others, saw their dream finally come true: the ground for the White House victory garden has been broken.
On March 20th, 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama and students from Bancroft Elementary School (District of Columbia) started working on the new vegetable garden.
Mrs. Obama told reporters that this was the first vegetable garden she had ever had.
She decided to do the garden to help show children that vegetables can be tasty as well as healthy.
As her interview with the NY Times shows, “A real delicious heirloom tomato is one of the sweetest things that you’ll ever eat,” she said. “And my children know the difference, and that’s how I’ve been able to get them to try different things.
“I wanted to be able to bring what I learned to a broader base of people. And what better way to do it than to plant a vegetable garden in the South Lawn of the White House?”
55 varieties of vegetables have been chosen from suggestions by the White House kitchen staff and the Obamas. You won’t find any beets growing there - evidently our new President is not fond of them.
There will, however, be tomatillos, hot peppers, cilantro, salad greens, berries and herbs. They will even have fresh honey from the 2 hives there.
I hoped, I dreamed, I worked for this day, and it is here : A White House Victory Garden has been revived.
What advice would you give to these new gardeners?
