White House Kitchen Garden (Washington, D.C.)

 garden, kitchen garden

First Lady Michelle Obama, alongside schoolchildren and a squad of reporters, ceremonially broke ground for the White House Kitchen Garden in the spring of 2009. White House blueprints and engineering drawings at the time called the site the "Spring Vegetable Garden", perhaps assuming that it would only be a one-season enterprise.
It has since grown more established.
The White House website now uses the name White House Kitchen Garden.
To encourage interest in organically-grown food among the young, the White House encourages school groups to sign up for special tours of the garden through a web-based form here :
www.whitehouse.gov/about/tours_and_events/garden/

In an ironic twist and cautionary tale about urban gardening, media reports in 2009 indicated that the soil in the garden had elevated, but not hazardous, levels of lead. The White House has not said if any vegetables grown in the garden have been used by the White House kitchen.