Victory Gardens Revisited

As many of you know I have really been getting into this slow food movement. It calls to me in a way few things have and I can't get enough, but this isn't a new thing.

I was reminded that having gardens (and chickens) was to some a patriotic duty. They were called victory gardens. The US, as well as many countries in Europe, encouraged their citizens to help with the food shortage during WWI and WWII by keeping gardens and chickens to feed themselves and possibly their neighbors. It was estimated there were 20 million gardens with 9-10 million tons of produce grown!!! Can you imagine? How awesome and amazing! People really believed it was their patriotic duty to serve their country in whatever small way they could.

Now I am not a political person and don't ever plan to be political on this blog, but what I will say is that I only wish we had such love for our country (and inherently for one another) that we could do such things today. I feel our society is jaded (and divided). I am jaded. We don't seem to share the same ideals and values as times past. We seem very focused on being an individual instead of being a community. I won't glorify the 1940's because I know we have made wonderful improvements in so many areas, but I can't help but believe that the people of the 1940's knew something we don't seem to know today. It was a culture of honesty and respect for your fellow man (ok not always for women). It was doing the right thing even if it was the harder thing. It was smiling and tipping your hat. It was an understanding and a recognition that we are all in the life together and that we need each other. How did we lose all of that?

I for one think we should bring victory gardens back. Not to help a war effort but to seek victory over what we have lost and perhaps in going outside to the garden we will find it again. I don't think people will find what they are looking for in laptops, TV's and iphones nor in the fast food and shopping malls. The secrets are hidden underneath the fall leaves, the quite patience of winter's snow, in the tender green tendrils of spring's bounty and in the lazy sunshine of summer.

Here's to victory gardens a new!