Michelle Obama and Elmo are joining forces to promote gardening and healthy eating.

“All these seeds need to grow are sun, soil and water. If you eat these healthy foods, you’re going to grow up to be big and strong, like me,” the First Lady says. “I know you’re going to like these vegetables, because in addition to being healthy, they really taste great!”

Other celebrities slated to make appearances on Sesame Street include Cameron Diaz, Eva Longoria-Parker, UK comedian Ricky Gervais and basketball star Kobe Bryant.

Helped out by fifth graders, Michelle Obama planted the first fruit and vegetable seedlings in the new White House garden Thursday.

The First Lady, who is vocal about her enjoyment of fresh, organic foods, planted spinach, lettuce, herbs, onions, shallots, cucumbers and peas. She hopes to plant tomatoes within the next few weeks, as well as maintain a beehive for honey on the South Lawn.

“In many countries they really believe in the importance of planting and growing their own food,” Mrs. Obama told the fifth-graders. She added that planting the garden was inexpensive and would provide her with “a ton of stuff.”

Michelle then asked the kids: “How much do you think it costs to do this garden?”

“Over $100,000,” guessed a boy.

Laughing, Mrs. Obama replied, “My husband would go crazy if he thought we were spending that kind of money! It’s between $100 and $200. So it’s not a lot of money. And this garden can not only feed my family, but it’s going to feed all the staff at the White House. We’re going to serve it at some State Dinners.”

“We can produce enough fruits and vegetables to feed us for years and years to come, for just a couple of hundred dollars,” she said.

In an interview for Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine, First lady Michelle Obama talked of her plans for the first organic vegetable garden at the White House. Michelle Obama, who is changing the traditional role of the First Lady with almost every move she makes, spoke about the importance of healthy eating and what she hopes the organic veggie garden will do to send that clearly important message to the nation:

“We want to use it as a point of education, to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet. You know, the tomato that’s from your garden tastes very different from one that isn’t. And peas – what is it like to eat peas in seasons? So we want the White House to be a place of education and awareness. And hopefully kids will be interested because there are kids living here.”

This Presidential organic garden represents a major victory for those activists that are extolling the multiple virtues of sustainable food and agriculture. Grass roots organization, the White House Organic Farm Project (WHO Farm), which have laboriously campaigned for this project since the new administration took office. The White House Organic Farm Project traveled across the nation in a biofuel-powered bus last year to raise awareness of the cause and focus attention on their request for this sustainability endeavor to help green the White House.

Michelle Obama visited over 100 students and graduates from YouthBuild USA programs, a youth and community development program that simultaneously addresses core issues facing low-income communities: housing, education, employment, crime prevention, and leadership development, who showed Obama their green building techniques.

The Youth Build USA program is undergoing an increasing emphasis on green building techniques. More than 120 Youth Build staff have received training in “green construction”. The program targets that, by no later than 2013, at least 75 percent of Youth Build homes will be “green homes.”

The Huffington Post reports, “First Lady Michelle Obama will join the effort, bringing visibility to the expanding program and, we hope, to its shift toward a ‘greener’ approach in line with the Green Jobs focus. And, Members of Congress (such as Senator John Kerry and Representative John Lewis) will also join the effort.”