Springtime, Hope, and Victory Gardens!
Posted by preparedcitizens on April 16, 2008
Go back to simple food, simple clothes, simple pleasures.
Pray hard, work hard, sleep hard and play hard.
Do it all courageously and cheerfully. – Herbert Hoover
Gardner at Fluwiki brought up the subject of Victory Gardens today. This is a subject that we have bantered around flublogia for quite a while.
Spring time is when I clean and organize my home. I also spend tons of time outside cleaning up the yard and once again deciding the gardening experiment of the summer. A Victory Garden on a treed lot is a challenge to growing vegetables. So this year it’s upside down tomatoes and cucumbers hanging over our sunny deck and an experiment in potato growing in the one patch of yard that is in full sun for most of the day. Some day I will hit on the right growing technique for our yard. With food prices going sky high I hope I hit it right this year. A upside down Victory Garden…odd idea but maybe it will work!
Our families preparedness efforts run the gamut. We are learning to conserve energy as part of an overall effort to “take out” a lot less than what we “put in”. We use less energy, we walk more, we waste less food, we eat more left overs, we do errands all at once to save gas, we turn off the lights, the tv, the computer and we spend more time outside. With an eye to the future we have identified a spring in the area assuring our water supply.
The changes that we are making have had an effect on even our energy usage, our waist lines, and our wallets…best of all, we have that peace of mind because we know that we can live with a lot less.
Preparedness in times past…
“Hooverizing” - preparedness by another name.
Hoover developed a food conservation program that Americans followed in service to others. The message here was to not buy more than you really need, todays message is to stock up, stock up, stock up. Then foods were fresh and hard to store. Today’s canned and packaged food stores well. So many times I have been thankful during a tough month to have stored food. Having 3 months worth of stored food is quite a feat but with prices going up and up, it’s like money in the bank. Augment that food with locally grown produce and we have a winning combination.
World War I marked the beginning of the concept of “Victory Gardens” and the experience of rationing during World War II encouraged almost 20 million Americans to plant one. Victory Gardesn allowed our fresh food supply to become quite local and the increase in quality nutritious food was important. This will be important during a pandemic as well.
For those who have not gardened before, some experimentation is needed before a garden becomes bountiful.
From wikipedia: Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom during World War I and World War II to reduce the pressure on the public food supply brought on by the war effort. In addition to indirectly aiding the war effort these gardens were also considered a civil “morale booster” — in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown. Making victory gardens became a part of daily life on the home front.
Community Victory Gardens can be grown in vacant lots or donated farm land.
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