AP

WASHINGTON FROMthe beginning, Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden has been an overachiever, churning out more peppers, parsley and eggplant than expected, and generating interest that, yes, really, crosses oceans.

Now, the first lady has added a 271-page book to her gardening resume, and people can read all about the planting misses that came with the hits, get tips on gardening at home, and, Michelle hopes, draw some inspiration that just might change their lives. Oh, and if it happens to help her husband’s re-election campaign, that would be nice, too.

Lofty goals for a book about a garden.

In “American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America,” Michelle holds out the raised vegetable beds on the South Lawn as “an expression of my hopes” for the nation’s children. “Just as each seed we plant has the potential to become something extraordinary, so does every child,” she writes.

The $30 book, released Tuesday by Crown Publishers, traces how a city kid from the South Side of Chicago who became a working mother and then a political spouse found herself fretting on that first planting day, March 20, 2009, about whether an L-shaped stretch of soil would prove fertile ground for a national conversation “about the food we eat, the lives we lead, and how all of that affects our children.” The book, which answers that question with a resounding yes, arrives just in time for her husband’s re-election campaign. And while the book is decidedly non-political, that fits perfectly with the Obama campaign’s view that the first lady can do her husband a world of good simply by pushing the non-threatening causes such as healthy living that have made her a far more popular figure than the president himself.

Michelle’s favourability rating in the latest AP-GfK poll was 70 percent, compared with 58 percent for her husband.

The book’s release comes with a flurry of media appearances.

She’s already been a TV frequent flyer to promote her “Let’s Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity, doing pushups with Ellen DeGeneres, playing tug-of-war with Jimmy Fallon in the White House and serving veggie pizza to Jay Leno.

She says she gets asked about the garden wherever she goes.

The book is chock full of colourful, glossy photos of luscious- looking vegetables, complete with a cover picture in which the first lady’s blouse seems to be colour-coordinated with the eggplants in her bulging basket of produce.

Bo, the popular family dog, gets plenty of cameo appearances.

There are maps tracing the growth of the garden over the past three years, and stories about community gardens around the country.

Even a how-to on creating a compost bin.