The Obamas Grow Their Own: New Video of The Obama White House Garden

by Paul McGinniss

In Spring of 2009, the Obama White House broke ground on the first vegetable garden at the White House since First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's victory garden during WWII.

Using seeds passed down from President Thomas Jefferson's garden at Monticello, the new garden serves as an example for the rest of the country and, hopefully, will inspire more people to grow food just outside the doors of their own kitchen.

The Roosevelt victory garden was more symbolic than practical and was a small fraction of the current White House plot. In contrast, today's garden has already supplied hundreds of pounds of fresh produce incorporated into the range of White House meals from Obama family meals to state dinners.

Watch the video below in which First Lady Michelle Obama and White House Chef Sam Kass discuss the story of the garden.



Since the Spring 2009 planting of the Obama garden, it has not been widely reported why the garden got planted in the first place. The major impetus was due to the efforts of Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International and his Eat the View Campaign. Launched in February 2008, "Eat the View" proposed that the Obamas replant a White House victory garden. Over 100,000 people signed the petition and asked the Obamas to plant an organic garden on the 18 acres of the White House lawn.

"Eat the View" continues its campaign to plant high-impact food gardens in other high-profile locations. For his efforts, Doiron won one of The Daily Green's 2009 "Heart of Green Awards".

To learn more about the history of the new White House garden, watch the video below where Roger Doiron is interviewed in July 2008 at his "white house" in Scarborough, Maine by New England Cable News.



Copyright 2009 Paul McGinniss