FLOTUS in the garden!

The First Lady has made it a priority to leave a garden-to-table, healthy-foods-in-the-schools legacy. The “Let’s Move” initiative, which started with the 1,100 square foot vegetable garden on the South Lawn, originally developed when Mrs. Obama realized her daughters Malia and Sasha were not eating rounded meals (a lot of eating out and snacking). The garden now produces more than 55 varieties of vegetables that are not only incorporated into White House meals, but also donated to the local soup kitchen and food bank.

source: here

A White House garden is by no means a novel idea: the second President John Adams (and First Lady Abigail) planted the first White House garden in 1800, Roosevelt planted a victory garden during WWII to promote the use of gardens by American citizens in a time of possible food scarcity, and most recently Hillary Clinton utilized the roof of the White House for a vegetable garden. However our FLOTUS is taking the next step and taking to the road, kicking off a garden tour initiative in her last year in the White House.

source: here

Mrs. Obama announced last week that she will travel around the US to gardens, schools and other spaces to help share the stories of local gardens. To kick off this tour she visited a local DC garden that might seem a tad familiar… because you saw it last spring when we toured Ēriks and Linda’s Urban Farm Plans!

In addition to this White House video make sure to watch the video that appeared on the Today show (which also included a surprise visit to two DC-area schools) to see Michelle Obama announce the initiative. You can also follow along on her garden journey through the Instagram account @WHKitchenGarden, and here is the Urban Farm Plans website. Finally, the original post on their backyard garden, The Modern Face of Urban Gardening.