Part 1

During World War I and II, governments in Western Europe and North America encouraged their people to plant food gardens on both private and public land.  The fruit, vegetables and herbs they grew were used to supplement each family’s rations.  At one time, during WWI, more than five million U.S. gardens produced food to cover the gaps in the supply.  Not only were many of the farmlands in Europe damaged and devastated by the war, but many agricultural workers were also recruited for the military both overseas and in the States.

Today, we’re seeing the effect of disrupted supply chains and stay-at-home orders that keep us from running to the store whenever we need a head of lettuce.  Those who have lost their jobs during this pandemic need ways to help them feed their families.  What if we just walk out our back doors and into our gardens to pick some of our food?  What if we plant, once again, the inimitable Victory Gardens? 

With the COVID-19 pandemic as our invisible enemy, we could use gardening as another way to promote community while social distancing to help keep the virus at bay.  We all desperately need to find ways we can stay active and contribute, not just to our own households during the stay-at-home orders, but to our neighbors and communities as well.  Some will continue working as essential workers, some will sew masks or provide food for healthcare staffs and first responders, and others can grow food to eat and safely share with others who need to stay at home.  (A porch delivery from your garden to the elderly neighbor next door, or the nurse’s home down the street would be great.)

Now, when social distancing keeps us apart and the news is filled with numbers of cases and deaths, we need an uplift!

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During the darkest days of World War II, Americans learned that growing food can provide us with a boost in morale and a sense of belonging.  Now, when social distancing keeps us apart and the news is filled with numbers of cases and deaths, we need an uplift! Residents in the suburbs and rural communities can plant gardens that will get them outside–away from technology, rampant social media “fake” news and hostilities.  City dwellers can container garden on balconies, porches and patios. There are some great community garden programs hosted on vacant lots in the largest cities that are already helping to alleviate the food deserts in their innermost neighborhoods.  This would be an ongoing movement that should not quit when this virus has been conquered.  We need to do this for our ongoing overall mental as well as physical health.

But some will tell you this might further harm farmers who are already tilling their vegetables under due to lack of demand.  Unfortunately, it is true that agricultural businesses have suffered because their largest institutional and food service customers are closed temporarily.  Retail sales of fresh produce—to those of us able to shop at the local supermarket—only represent a third of the produce sold in the U.S. today.  And the remaining two thirds can’t easily be redirected, repackaged and distributed to the retail markets, nor can the overwhelming amount of perishable product be stored at food pantries indefinitely.  I believe that this problem will right itself when restaurants and institutions are reopened and thus would not be affected by gardening anyway. 

According to the U.S.D.A., in 2017, one third of the vegetables sold in the U.S. was imported, and 55 percent of the fresh fruit came from outside our borders as well.  That is the portion we should look to replace when possible.  Doing so will help us ensure our food is from known, safe sources as well. (Remember all the salmonella recalls on produce the past couple years?)

Producing your own fresh produce in a Victory Garden will benefit you as you eat more fresh food, as you preserve it for future use (more on that later!), and as you get the exercise and the sense of satisfaction from toiling in the dirt yourself.  I already have my planned plots, and my hubby has been very busy getting the dirt ready for me.  I have seed flats with seedlings popping out of them, reaching for the sunlight through my kitchen patio door.  I have over-planted, so I’ll share some of my seedlings with my neighbors (porch delivery only). 

So who’s with me? 

Look for Part 2 soon with more on my Victory Garden adventure plus other entries journaling my self-sustainability journey.