Green Space

A great day to plant a garden with Michelle Obama

This warm weather has gardeners' green thumbs twitching. Sunday, we planted chard, lettude, radishes, scallions and leeks. And today, Michelle Obama took students out into the White House garden -- "the First Garden," they're calling it -- to plant some early crops there.

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A great day to plant a garden with Michelle Obama

POSTED: Monday, March 26, 2012, 5:58 PM

Sandy Bauers, Inquirer GreenSpace Columnist

First lady Michelle Obama plants mustard seedlings with Girl Scouts, from second from left, Emma Vonderlinn, Emily Burnham, and Gia Muto, all from Fairport, N.Y. during a spring planting of the White House kitchen garden Monday at the White House in Washington. (AP)

This warm weather has gardeners' green thumbs twitching.

Over the weekend, my husband and I tossed five truckloads of mulch over the fence into our vegetable garden, on top of a winter's worth of composted chicken droppings and food scraps. Oh boy.

Sunday, we planted chard, lettuce, radishes, scallions and leeks.

And today, Michelle Obama took students out into the White House garden -- "the First Garden," they're calling it -- to plant some early crops there.

The group included sixth-grade students from Stetser Elementary School in Chester, who had written to the First Lady about planting a butterfly garden at the school and their plans to add a vegetable garden. The principal of the school wrote that the garden would “make connections for our students around growing and tasting fresh fruits and vegetables. Our goal will be to connect our garden with our local community and incorporate the produce we grow into our school lunch program.”

The students planted potatoes, spinach, broccoli, carrots, radishes and onions.

The current White House garden got its start in 2009, with the First Lady promoting it as a way to start a conversation about the health of the nation's children. It was the first vegetable garden at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden.

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About this blog

Sandy Bauers is the environment reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where she has worked for more than 20 years as a reporter and editor. She lives in northern Chester County with her husband, two cats, a large vegetable garden and a flock of pet chickens.

GreenSpace - her column about how to reduce your carbon footprint in everyday life - appears every other Monday in Health & Science. Reach Sandy at sbauers@phillynews.com.