Michelle Obama reveals she received a ‘beautiful care package’ from Dr Jill Biden

First Lady Jill Biden delighted her close friend Michelle Obama with a touching personal gift from the White House.  

Dr Biden, 69, sent the Obamas a hamper of vegetables picked from the White House Kitchen Garden, which was planted by the then First Lady Michelle Obama in 2009. 

The 2,800 square foot garden on the South Lawn provides locally-grown food for the first family and White House guests. It also serves as a model for how food can be grown at home.  

Special delivery! First Lady Jill Biden sent close friend Michelle Obama (pictured together in November 2016) a hamper of vegetables picked from the White House Kitchen Garden

Fresh: The basket of produce was picked from the garden that was first planted by Michelle, 59, in 2009

Delighted: Mrs Obama shared a photo of the delivery on Instagram and publicly thanked her friend, adding, ‘Love you, Jill!’

Mrs Obama shared a photo of the delivery on Instagram and publicly thanked her friend, adding: ‘Love you, Jill!’. 

The caption reads: ‘So thankful for this beautiful care package from our amazing @FLOTUS! These fresh veggies from the White House Kitchen Garden were such a wonderful — and delicious — surprise.’

The First Lady responded in the comments, writing simply: ‘Food is love,’ with a green heart emoji.  

The Obamas live in a stunning $8.1million home in Washington D.C.’s Kalorama neighborhood, just a few miles from the White House – ideal for a delivery of fresh vegetables. 

During her time as First Lady, the White House Kitchen Garden was a project that Mrs Obama focused much of her attention on, even writing a book about it in 2012. 

In ‘American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America,’ Mrs Obama described the raised vegetable beds on the South Lawn as being ‘an expression of her hopes’ for the nation’s children. 

‘Just as each seed we plant has the potential to become something extraordinary, so does every child,’ she wrote. 

Her successor, Melania Trump, also used the garden as a means of working with young people, and in September 2017, she invited students from the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington, D.C. to join her for an afternoon planting vegetables in the green space. 

Now, it seems that Dr Biden is eager to continue the tradition that was started by her close friend Mrs Obama.   

Pride and joy: The 2,800 square foot garden on the South Lawn provides locally-grown food for the first family and White House guests. It also serves as a model for how food can be grown at home. Pictured, Mrs Obama at work in the garden in October 2014

Still close: The Obamas and the Bidens were last seen together at the inauguration last month. Pictured, Jill Biden and Michelle Obama embrace on the West Front of the Capitol

The Obamas and the Bidens were last seen together at the inauguration last month. 

Mrs Obama and Dr Biden are understood to have formed a close friendship during the eight years they spent working alongside each other when their husbands were President and Vice President, from 2009 to 2017. 

In December Mrs Obama penned a lengthy Instagram post praising Dr Biden after a ‘misogynistic’ Wall Street Journal writer, Joseph Epstein, called the 69-year-old ‘kiddo’ and urged her to drop her doctor title, claiming that it ‘sounds and feels fraudulent’.

Mrs Obama wrote: ‘For eight years, I saw Dr. Jill Biden do what a lot of professional women do — successfully manage more than one responsibility at a time, from her teaching duties to her official obligations in the White House to her roles as a mother, wife, and friend.’

The mother-of-two pointed out that Biden was the latest in a long line of ‘professional women’ whose ‘accomplishments’ are met with ‘skepticism, even derision’ from ‘weak’ people, writing: ‘Right now, we’re all seeing what also happens to so many professional women, whether their titles are Dr., Ms., Mrs., or even First Lady: We’re doubted by those who choose the weakness of ridicule over the strength of respect.’

Obama went on to praise her friend for ‘giving us a better example’, and gushed that ‘we could not ask for a better First Lady.’

‘She will be a terrific role model not just for young girls but for all of us, wearing her accomplishments with grace, good humor, and yes, pride.’

Obama’s heartfelt social media tribute was shared hours after Biden herself hit back at Epstein, 83, on Twitter, where she wrote: ‘Together, we will build a world where the accomplishments of our daughters will be celebrated, rather than diminished.’