Victory gardens were gardens planted during the world wars in order to provide extra food. Infrastructure was taxed, logistical hurdles made it hard to get fresh produce where it needed to go, and there was a shortage of workers to make everything work. Sound familiar yet?
They gained their popularity during the First and (mainly) Second World Wars. Many nations lacked the ability to keep everything stocked let alone the whole logistics chain running smoothly. By converting yards and public spaces into victory gardens, people were able to get cheap produce, have access to staples for each season, and prevent wasting time and resources going anywhere.
In light of the pandemic we’re facing, victory gardens are more important than ever. An item you can avoid going out for is one less chance taken. I love fresh cilantro, to the point I won’t eat it a day or two after it’s cut. Fortunately, that’s not an issue since it took over my back yard years ago. My family can’t subsist off our garden, but we can definitely cut down on a lot of trips to the store for things we want or need.
The Purpose of a Victory Garden
Victory gardens don’t exist to create complete self-sufficience, they exist to cut out a lot of logistical waste growing things in one place and moving them somewhere else. When you go to the store, you spend gas and contribute to traffic. The produce has to be grown, harvested, sorted, prepped for shipment, shipped, unpacked, and presented. This overhead means things are shipped earlier than is idea. Whatever isn’t good needs to be disposed of which requires someone to haul it off in the trash.
A victory garden cuts this process out for certain items. We save a plastic bag, a twist-tie, and any waste by harvesting our own cilantro. Our pears don’t need a box with styrofoam. I don’t use pesticides or fertilizer either. Stuff that goes bad gets worked into compost which is mixed into the soil. This cuts all of the logistic items out for our crops.
During wartime, this was arguably essential for victory. By cutting unnecessary resource utilization, more resources could be focused on the task at hand. Just a few crops meant fewer trips to the store, less waste (from the supply chain if nothing else), more efficient resource usage, and healthier eating in times of scarcity.
How Victory Gardens Impact the Present
Each crop we grow saves us from having to be wasteful for part of the logistics process. This was the power of a victory garden during wartime. We may not be at war in the sense of the World Wars, but we have a pandemic on our hands. Each trip is a risk of getting sick, getting others sick, or taking resources others may need. The threat of scarcity is real again.
When we go to the grocery store (I say “we”, but only one person goes at a time), the shelves are usually bare with things no one really wanted being all that is left unless you know when to go. Even then, the produce just isn’t as good as it could be. I don’t have to worry about fresh herbs or certain foods anymore though. As we scale up our efforts, we get more and more luxury items we don’t have to go out to get.
What is your backyard doing? Grass doesn’t do much except supposedly look nice. I didn’t get much from my yard until I began converting it to something which provided value. If you have a yard, what is the point of having grass? If you’re bored in lock-down, convert your yard to something which will provide value and a safety net for you and your family. It might not provide everything, but rice and beans are a whole lot more exciting with something else in them.
Learning to Love to Garden
There’s just something about the work that goes into growing your own food which makes each crop that much tastier. It gets you out in the sun, and rewards you with cheap produce. The store’s been out of cilantro for weeks now (I only know because it’s next to something we want at every store we frequent). There are a bunch of other things, but we haven’t really paid attention.
Gardening gets you outside and (at least a little) active. It’s great for families and singles alike. It also gives you something to do which can be really low maintenance depending on what you choose to grow. You can also grow things which you can’t find at the store.
If you like tomatoes, how do you feel when all that’s left are “gassed yesterday” roma tomatoes? This used to not really be that big of a deal since you could just go elsewhere, but in the midst of a pandemic, it’s not wise to go anywhere for no real reason. You have to eat something, but past that, food gets to be more of a luxury.
Gardening is also extremely cheap if you already have some property. You can convert your backyard to grow something relatively cheaply. A lot of places have soil good enough to grow at least something edible in them. A few bags of top soil can change the quality of the soil enough to grow a lot more.
Planting a Garden
It’s pretty easy to plant a garden if you aren’t too worried about the aesthetics. You just need to get rid of the surface cover, till the soil, then plant what you want (well, there are a few other steps too). Weed occasionally and water as often as necessary and you’re golden. Gardening doesn’t have to be an expensive or a hard hobby if you approach it right.
If you don’t have a yard, you can still grow things in pots. An herb garden can cut down on waste as well as get you fresher, healthier meals. Certain plants can grow on a patio or indoors even meaning a little extra variety with minimal space usage.
You can either buy seeds or start out regrowing bits of plants. Green onions grow back in water if done right. You can transfer them to soil as well for even healthier growth. Garlic, potatoes, onions, etc. can all be grown easily.
If your potatoes start to get nasty, throw them in the ground if they aren’t rotting. You might get a free potato plant out of it. If strawberries go bad, do the same, who knows if the seeds will take or not.
If you need containers, why not chipped bowls and burned out pots and pans to start out? If space isn’t at a premium, you can turn a bunch of waste into a something productive. All sorts of disposable containers can be repurposed should the mood strike you. This reduces your cost and ecological impact, at the expense of aesthetics.
Should You Take the Plunge?
Gardening pays dividends if you’re even a little worried about food scarcity or exposure. It saves you time and money if you can grow to enjoy it at least a little bit. If you need something to do, and want to make your life more stable, try out gardening in your backyard.
What’s your reason not to if you’re just stuck at home anyway? It’s at least something different and unlike most hobbies, it ends up saving money. A bunch of cilantro might be $1, but I get literally dozens a year and I do absolutely nothing for the cilantro except pick it. Mint fluctuates so much I don’t even know how much I save anymore. It gets even more sustainable when you water with gray water.
Grow fruits, grow vegetables, grow things that you can eat and live off of. If your neighbors do similar, you can even trade crops to get more variety. It’s a really cheap way to reduce your impact on the environment while making your own life more convenient. You don’t have to worry about social distancing in your own backyard after all.
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