the Green White House

fantastic pic from eat the view

What a delight to hear that today the first White House vegetable garden since Eleanor Roosevelt's Victory Garden is officially breaking ground.

Again- Michelle Obama goes right to the heart of all that is good about her ascendancy as FIRST LADY. She knows what is what, current and important for children. The vegetable garden teaching experience phenomenon is growing, what better place than at the White House. Twenty-three fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington will help her dig up the soil for the 1,100-square-foot plot in a spot visible to passers-by on E Street. (It’s just below the Obama girls’ swing set.) Students from the school, which has had a garden since 2001, will also help plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs. (NYTIMES read the entire story)

Alice Waters , a champion of locally grown, organic food, has been trying for more than a decade to get first families to set an example for others by gardening and her Edible Schoolyard is now a nationally recognized program that takes school children out of the classroom and into the garden and the kitchen.

Alice Waters

the White House Garden Layout

Sam Kass, left, an assistant White House chef, and Dale Haney, a White House gardener, at the site of a new vegetable garden on the South Lawn.
(photograph by Stephen Crowley-NYTIMES)

no gowns are in the works~ this one worn by Verushka

and YES, there will be ARUGULA.

"Eruca sativa"
Giorgio Liberale and Wolfgang Meyerpeck
Woodcut
from Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501-1577)