I was in Washington DC for a business conference (AACR) this week and had one tourist location I made sure to find time for: the White House Vegetable Garden! I wasn't able to get a tour, but did peek through the fence and take photos.
It seems to be planted nicely already. What do you think is in? I think I see onions, and broccoli. The poles are maybe for a pea trellis? Maybe rhubarb in the raised beds at the left? Probably salad greens too. There is a big stack of beehives about 50 feet from the garden, by the tree in the middle of the lawn. Looks great!
I added a diagram below of the garden last year and a link to a nice news article about the garden.
This year's White House vegetable garden is 1500 square feet (about 26 by 60 feet). That's a bit bigger than my vegetable garden space of about 1000 square feet: community plot (25 x 30) and my home garden (a 10 x 12 bed and five 10 x 3.5 beds). This amount of space can produce a ton of food - even with a amateur gardener. The link below says the White House garden produced 1000 pounds of food last year. I'm sure they could put a small farm on the lawn, but I think the point is to have a family garden. This is a perfect scale for a family.
The article also says Michelle expanded the garden this year. "The newly planted garden is 400 square feet larger than last year and will contain four new vegetables: bok choy, cauliflower, artichokes, and mustard greens."
April 1, 2010, The Christian Science Monitor, Michelle Obama expands the White House garden,