During his presidency from 1801 to 1809, Thomas Jefferson hired the White House’s first gardener, whose duties included cultivating a kitchen garden, but the vegetable garden and surrounding grounds did not truly flourish until John Quincy Adams became president in 1825. Shortly before beginning the first major planting program at the White House, Adams wrote on July 5, 1826, “Now I shall plant, if at all, more for the public than for myself.” He established a tree seedling nursery and a two-acre garden filled with vegetables, herbs, fruit trees, flowers, shrubs, and shade trees. By the 1840s, a new kitchen garden had been planted southwest of the White House, with an ornamental garden to the southeast. Most surviving records for this kitchen garden date to Abraham Lincoln’s administration from 1861 to 1865, including seed receipts showing that the Lincolns enjoyed a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Local nurseryman and horticulturist John Saul supplied seeds for the kitchen garden during the Lincoln administration and, under the guidance of landscape gardener A.J. Downing, also helped improve the National Mall, Smithsonian Grounds, Lafayette Square, and the Ellipse. An 1867 landscape plan includes the only known rendering of the historic kitchen garden, showing the approximately one-acre garden immediately west of the house as it appeared during Lincoln’s presidency. The kitchen garden was removed in 1871 during Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency to make way for West Executive Avenue. During World War II, Eleanor Roosevelt used the grounds to promote a Civilian Defense program encouraging home-grown fruits and vegetables, and in the spring of 1943 ten-year-old Diana Hopkins, who lived in the White House with her father Harry Hopkins, planted and maintained a demonstration victory garden south of the East Garden as an example for Americans nationwide. In spring 2009, Michelle Obama, assisted by local schoolchildren, planted a new White House kitchen garden at the southwest end of the south grounds to provide fresh seasonal produce for the first family and to teach American children the importance of eating more vegetables and fruits as part of a healthier lifestyle.
