Columbia Star

1963        Celebrating 60 Years      2023

Victory Gardens: Gardening for the homeland

Stopping to smell the flowers



 

 

The war gardens of WWI (1914-1918) and victory gardens of WWII (1941-1945) were government initiatives requesting civilians to become “soldiers of the soil” and grow their own fruits and vegetables. European and American farmers were enlisted in the military leaving a void in homeland food production labor. Also transport of food supply across the country or abroad was too costly. Growing one’s own food to support the war effort was deemed as a way to boost morale during a stressful time for families.

In the U.S., millions of rural, urban, and suburban residents turned parks, vacant lots, backyards, rooftops, and schoolyards into food gardens. Government booklets were distributed to citizens detailing how to grow a victory garden with diagrams of four essential kinds of home gardens with square footage and rows of crops—farm, subsistence, backyard or vacant lot, and kitchen garden. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt oversaw a Victory Garden on the front lawn of the White House.

Military officer checks Vegetables for Victory.

Military officer checks Vegetables for Victory.

Since school gardens were commonplace in the United States as far back as 1890, especially in large cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, the U.S. Bureau of Education enlisted 2.5 million schoolchildren into the U.S. School Garden Army in WWI, producing 48 million dollars worth of wartime food. In WWII, 18- 20 million family and community victory gardens produced 40 percent of the vegetables in the U.S.

When WWII ended, the generation that had gardened during both wars continued to grow food gardens and passed along their practices to their children and grandchildren.

My maternal grandmother was my garden mentor. I worked beside her doing everything she did. Our gardening relationship was an action dialog. Her kitchen garden was a 36’ x 36’ victory garden with rows of corn, tomatoes, green and wax beans, peas, spinach, lettuces, cucumber, radishes, beets, carrots, green onions, asparagus, summer and winter squash, parsley, and dill. Arbors of concord grapes fenced the back of the food plot. Nearby were cherry, peach, and mulberry trees, currants, strawberries, and rhubarb. Rhubarb was prominent and prolific for strawberry rhubarb pie and rhubarb sauce.

 

 

I learned vegetative propagation in the strawberry patch, hand pollination with squash, and genetic mutation from althea. When she introduced me to seed catalogs, mesmerized by the selections, I starting ordering from Burpee, Park, Shumway, Henry Field’s, Gurney’s, Landreth, Ferry- Morse, Northrup-King, etc.

Bushel baskets of fresh produce were served and shared all summer and in fall the kitchen became a cannery—peach, grape, strawberry, and currant jellies and jams, grape juice, dill pickles, tomato juice, and whole tomatoes. She blanched and froze peas, beans, squash, and rhubarb. Preserving the flavors of summer in the pantry coaxed anticipation of next year’s garden.

Every inch of soil not producing food brought fragrance, color, and pollinators— old roses, tiger lilies, peonies, hollyhock, larkspur, sweet peas, zinnias, marigold, bachelor button, balsam, calendula, cosmos, snapdragon, petunia, and portulaca were tended in foundation beds with althea, barberry, mock orange, snowberry, snowball viburnum, spirea, vitex, and yucca. Sweet alyssum, lobelia, and baby’s breath laced flagstone stepping stones. While we were mapping the land in plants, animals plotted themselves in places on the grid.

Neighbors work in a community victory garden.

Neighbors work in a community victory garden.

What might a 21st century Victory Garden look like? While sheltering at home, draft a plan with family members to include where, when, how and what to plant this summer into fall. The S.C. Gardenbased Learning Network is available assist.

WWII seed catalog

WWII seed catalog

 

 

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