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<DIV>Obamas to Plant White House Vegetable Garden </NYT_HEADLINE>
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<DIV class=byline>By <A title="More Articles by Marian Burros"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/marian_burros/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><FONT
color=#004276>MARIAN BURROS</FONT></A></DIV></NYT_BYLINE>
<DIV class=timestamp>Published: March 19, 2009 </DIV>
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<P>WASHINGTON — On Friday, <A title="More articles about Michelle Obama."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/michelle_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><FONT
color=#004276>Michelle Obama</FONT></A> will begin digging up a patch of White
House lawn to plant a vegetable garden, the first since <A
title="More articles about Eleanor Roosevelt."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/eleanor_roosevelt/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><FONT
color=#004276>Eleanor Roosevelt</FONT></A>’s victory garden in World War II.
There will be no beets (the president doesn’t like them) but arugula will make
the cut.</P>
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<DIV class=credit>Stephen Crowley/The New York Times</DIV>
<P class=caption>Sam Kass, left, an assistant White House chef, and Dale Haney,
superintendent of the White House Grounds, at the site of a new vegetable garden
on the South Lawn. </P></DIV>
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<H4>Multimedia</H4>
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<DIV class=credit>Stephen Crowley/The New York Times</DIV>
<P class=caption>From left, Cristeta Comerford, Sam Kass and Bill Yosses in the
White House kitchen. </P></DIV></DIV></DIV><A name=secondParagraph></A>
<P>While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and
formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate
children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at time when
obesity has become a national concern.</P>
<P>In an interview in her office, Mrs. Obama said, “My hope is that through
children, they will begin to educate their families and that will, in turn,
begin to educate our communities.”</P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>Almost the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds,
“whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said laughing. “Now Grandma, my mom, I
don’t know.” Her mother, she said, would probably sit back and say: “Isn’t that
lovely. You missed a spot.”</P>
<P>Whether there would be a White House garden has been more than a matter of
landscaping. It’s taken on political and environmental symbolism as the Obamas
have been lobbied for months by advocates who believe that growing more food
locally could lead to healthier eating and lessen reliance on huge industrial
farms that use more oil for transportation and chemicals for fertilizer.</P>
<P>In the meantime, promoting healthful eating has become an important part of
Mrs. Obama’s agenda. </P>
<P>“The power of Michelle Obama and the garden can create a very powerful
message about eating healthy and more delicious food,” said Dan Barber, an owner
of Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., an organic restaurant that
grows many of its own ingredients. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it could
translate into real change.”</P>
<P>The Clintons grew some vegetables in pots on the roof of the White House. But
the Obamas’ garden will have 55 varieties of vegetables — from a wish list of
the kitchen staff — grown from organic seedlings started at the executive
mansion’s greenhouses.</P>
<P>The Obamas will feed their love of Mexican food with cilantro, tomatilloes
and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead,
red leaf and galactic. There will be spinach, chard, collards and black kale.
For desserts, there will be a patch of berries. And herbs will include some more
unusual varieties, like anise hyssop and Thai basil. A White House carpenter who
is a beekeeper will tend two hives for honey.</P>
<P>Total cost for the seeds, mulch, etc., is $200.</P>
<P>The plots will be in raised beds fertilized with White House compost, crab
meal from the Chesapeake Bay, lime and green sand. Ladybugs and praying mantises
will help control harmful bugs. </P>
<P>Cristeta Comerford, the White House’s executive chef, is eager to plan menus
around the garden, and Bill Yosses, the pastry chef, is looking forward to berry
season.</P>
<P>Sam Kass, an assistant White House chef who prepared healthful meals for the
Obama family in Chicago and is an advocate of <A
title="More articles about local food."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/l/local_food/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><FONT
color=#004276>local food</FONT></A>, will oversee the garden. The White House
grounds crew and kitchen staff will do most of the work, but other White House
staff members have volunteered. </P>
<P>“First of all,” Mrs. Obama said, “there’s nothing really cooler than coming
to the White House and harvesting some of the vegetables and being in the
kitchen with Cris and Sam and Bill, and cutting and cooking and actually
experiencing the joys of your work.”</P>
<P>Mrs. Obama, who said that she never had a vegetable garden before, said the
idea for it came from her experiences as a working mother trying to feed her
daughters, <A title="More articles about Malia Obama."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/malia_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><FONT
color=#004276>Malia</FONT></A> and <A title="More articles about Sasha Obama."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/sasha_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><FONT
color=#004276>Sasha</FONT></A>, a good diet. Eating out three times a week,
ordering a pizza, having a sandwich for dinner took it’s toll. The children’s
pediatrician told her she needed to be thinking about nutrition. </P>
<P>“He raised a flag for us,” she said, and within months the children lost
weight. </P>
<P>For children, she said, food is all about taste, and fresh and local taste
better. </P>
<P>“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.</P>
<P>“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.” </P>
<P>The country’s one million community gardens, she said, can also play an
important role for urban dwellers who have no backyards.</P>
<P>But, sitting in her office in the East Wing, Mrs. Obama stressed that she
doesn’t want people to feel guilty if they don’t have the time to have a garden:
there are still many small changes they can make. </P>
<P>“You can begin in your own cupboard by eliminating processed food, trying to
cook a meal a little more often, trying to incorporate more fruits and
vegetables,” she said.</P></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face="Gill Sans MT" FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>Laurie Davies Adams<BR>Executive
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floor<BR>San Francisco, CA
94111<BR>415-362-1137<BR>LDA@pollinator.org</FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial
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PTSIZE="12"><B><I>National Pollinator Week is June 22-28, 2009. <BR>Beecome
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