Wow...they think we'll believe anything!

And rightly so because, it would seem, a very large percentage of us do.

Lettuce takes anywhere between 40 and 85 days to mature, based on the variety. Peas take anywhere from 54 to 72 days. The garden was planted on March 20—89 days ago.

It's hard to take you guys seriously when you go down this road.

No doubt about it Biff. June is busting out all over.

I'm a New England gardener, and up here the days Biff mentioned would be those from transplanting fairly advanced plants, until harvest. With luck (if nothing got them, no root shock,etc.). Of course DC is warmer, so things might grow a little faster than up here. But lettuce is prone to bolt when not direct seeded, for example, as are peas and beans. Most novice gardeners do not have such perfect luck growing stuff fast, unless someone else with experience is actually doing the gardening. I don't think you could get them that fast from seed.

What interests me more than the feasibility of actually growing the stuff is WHO grew it. If Michelle, the dead giveaway that it was really her garden would have been dirt smudged gardening clothes instead of a pristine red and white outfit, grime under the fingernails from a real gardeners' obsessive, constant care (weeding here and there). 1100 square feet is a lot of garden for anyone to keep weeded, for one thing. Especially if she is doing it organically and no weedkiller. Growing vegetables organically is far more labor intensive than conventionally.
And what a scripted pep talk to the little darlings.

Yes.

Well, they planted rice seedlings all along the rails when Chairman Mao toured China that time on the train. The people were starving, but everywhere Mao looked there was rice growing (until it wilted).

The garden was planted on March 20—89 days ago

Ah, Biff? From the article:

This is the same garden the school children and the First Lady planted in April and the abundance was impressive.

Your confusion is understandable: there was a big article in the NYT on March 20 (89 days ago) about the intent to plant the garden. Shown is a picture of a really nice bit of lawn with a chef and gardener pointing out where things are going to be planted.

Also noted in the article is the intent to grow the food organically from seedlings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/dining/20garden.html

Well, I can't speak for the White House garden, but I planted my own garden this year, around the end of April. I've never done any gardening before.

Due to my inexperience and lack of knowledge, some plants never sprouted, and some are growing slowly.

But the radishes and lettuce: Whoa, Nellie! I can't eat salads that fast. At this point I'm actually hoping the rabbits come around and take some of it off my hands.

Without a confession from Obama's Potemkin, or Potemkin's supplier..., well, please don't make this a "plastic turkey" moment.

teh

They're holding back the fifteen-thousand foot beanstalk for the re-election.

Will anyone at the White House spill the beans?

Ahem.

I myself have never grown beans and can offer no expertise there. But it's not out of the ordinary at all to have lettuce this soon, including full heads, unless the weather has been utterly miserable. (In fact, this is when you'd normally harvest spring lettuce there, because once it gets hot there's no stopping it from bolting.)

Pre-harvest it's usual to use a cut-and-come-again method with greens (meaning you cut some and let the rest of the plant keep growing) - if you are willing/eager to eat baby letuce, you can start doing so within a couple of weeks of planting

Herbs also are good to start harvesting from pretty much as soon as they have true leaves.

Now tomatoes and peppers are an entirely different story - they're summer crops, they're fruits not leaves, and they require a couple of months of hot sunny weather at a minimum. But the WH isn't claiming to have harvested those - just greens and beans. For these crops the claimed results are not unreasonable.

(I of course assume the WH gardening staff is doing the actual, er, gardening, except during photo ops, and presumably they're reasonably expert at siting and caring for plants.)