White House Week

First Lady Michelle Obama joins students for the "Let's Move!" Spring garden planting in the White House Kitchen Garden, April 5, 2016. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

This week, the First Lady welcomed students and guests from across the country to plant the White House Kitchen Garden for the eighth year in a row, and final time as First Lady. This annual springtime tradition of planting the vegetable garden began in 2009 when the First Lady first broke ground on the South Lawn. The start of this tradition initiated a national conversation around the health and well-being of our nation—a conversation that evolved into her Let’s Move! initiative.

This year, students that participate in school garden programs in Wisconsin, Colorado, and Louisiana and local students from Bancroft Elementary School and Harriet Tubman Elementary School, who regularly help in the White House Kitchen Garden, joined the First Lady. Bringing the event full circle were some of the very students who participated in the first planting in 2009.

In addition, NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman and Astronaut Cady Coleman joined the First Lady to plant the same variety of lettuce that has been grown on the International Space Station.