Sowing the Future From Seeds of the Past

(Aug. 31) - First lady Michelle Obama got a big assist from local fifth-graders when she planted the White House Kitchen Garden last spring. But you may not know that she had another helper: Thomas Jefferson.

Some White House garden vegetables began as seeds that came from Monticello, the third president's mountaintop home in Charlottesville, Va. Monticello's head gardener provided seedlings for some of Jefferson's favorites, including brown Dutch and tennis ball lettuces, savoy cabbage and prickly seed spinach.

"Thomas Jefferson, more than any one man, changed the way we eat in this country and the way we grow food," said White House assistant chef Sam Kass in a video provided exclusively to AOL News. "When his ambassadors would go out all over the world, he would ask them to bring back seeds."

Jefferson also championed seasonal growing, an idea embraced by the first lady for her year-round garden. "That's really something that people are really coming back to now, and thinking about ways to use the diversity of crops and keep growing throughout the year," Kass said.

Other early presidents, including George Washington and John Adams, were also gardeners. Washington famously refused a third term as president in part because he missed his garden at Mount Vernon. But a vegetable garden has been absent at the White House for decades. The first lady's garden is the first of its kind at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. since Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden during World War II.

"When we look back at the records, they had a really tough time getting it established," Kass said of Roosevelt's garden. "In the end it was a plot probably about the size of one bed that we have now." The chef added that the current garden is the first in more than 100 years with the power to feed a good number of people.

Also growing in the 1,100-square-foot garden are broccoli, peas, peppers, collards, carrots, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, blueberries and a variety of herbs. The produce feeds the first family and guests at state dinners, and some also goes to a local soup kitchen.

For Mrs. Obama, it was an opportunity not only to improve nutrition for her own family, but to inspire Americans to make better choices with their diets.

"The garden was something that I always thought about," she said. "I was probably like most busy mothers, you know, a busy working family, and I would find it difficult to feed my family in a healthy way, quickly."

Mrs. Obama said she made an effort to change her family's eating habits during he presidential campaign by adding more fruits and vegetables, cutting down on sugar and processed foods and eating out less. "I saw some really immediate results with just those minor changes," she said. "So I thought, well, if I could help other families learn these small changes in my role as first lady, that would be a good thing."

Mrs. Obama broke ground on the garden on the South Lawn in March with the help of students from Bancroft Elementary School. The children toiled to prepare the soil, working with shovels, pitchforks and wheelbarrows. They returned later for planting and harvesting.

"We wanted the focus to be on kids because you can affect children's behavior so much more easily than you can adults," the first lady said. "I saw that in my own life. My kids jumped on the new routine and didn't miss a beat, and they began to monitor our behavior much more than I would monitor theirs."

Mrs. Obama also emphasized the importance of families sharing meals together at the dinner table. "We've found that we've been able to do that, and part of the message is, if the president of the United States can sit down with his family and have dinner, hopefully more families can find the time to do the same thing."

To date, the White House Kitchen Garden has yielded more than 400 pounds of produce. And plans are in the works to take it to the next level. President Barack Obama recently said he and the first lady are looking to set up a farmers market just outside the White House, which may sell food from the garden and from local farmers.

"The garden is really an important introduction to what I hope will be a new way that our country thinks about food," Mrs. Obama said. "So that's the story of the garden, and it's been quite an amazing success, if I do say so myself."

For more on the White House Kitchen Garden, visit WhiteHouse.gov.