Didn't I just read somewhere that The WH vegetable garden cannot be eaten from due to high lead levels in the soil? IIRC during the Clinton era the lawn was fertilized with sewage sludge or something (how apropos)contaminated with lead.

Lead in the soil making the veggies inedible is a rumor that has been widely debunked. Yes, there is lead in the soil but nothing toxic.

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/garden/13lead.html?_r=1

Thank you for clearing that up for me.
I knew I had read something about it, but wasn't aware it had been debunked(by the Times, no less).

Now, why did she need to go to the Farmers market, with all those fresh garden veggies right outside her door?

Up here, we eat kale clear into mid winter. Not Tuscan kale, of course.

When I think of vegetable gardens, I think of my dad's. He got up at five each morning, went to work by six-thirty so he could be off by four, and then tended the garden. Six-foot tomato plants (Sacramento— you remember!) and bell peppers that lasted for months. We'd have salad all summer long and liked it— not even because we had to, but because it was good.

I'm the youngest of five kids. The vegetable garden is how my parents survived our teenaged years without being eaten out of house and home.

I'm planning my garden. It will probably be years before I get it right. What I'm really hoping to be able to do is to co-opt one of the sprinkler heads and turn it into a faucet so I can set up drip irrigation on a timed system, because that's one thing that's saved my dad so much time in the last several years. (You can get little battery-operated faucet timers, too— my parents can go on vacation and have the garden watered perfectly in their absence.)

The White House garden soil contains toxins? And the Obama's cannot get the EPA to put together a remediation plan?

How silly.

And she could just use a series of planter boxes ntil that is done.

Somewhat on topic: The Dearborn Inn has an herb garden. I have actually seen the kitchen staff collecting various herbs.