Since I was born at the beginning of WW II, my parents were among those many people who tried to have a "Victory Garden" in their yard. While my mother didn't contribute to starting the garden, due to her pregnancy with me, my visiting grandparents, Gummy and Poppy, did a bit of hoeing and turning of the horrible soil in our yard in Dallas.
I never heard that we ate anything that was grown there. My grandparents lived in San Antonio at the time, but they may have driven their Studebaker up to Dallas when I was born in August.
Vintage Photos: World War II ‘Victory Gardens’
Urban farming was way more than a fad in the 1940s.
"Around 20 million families planted victory gardens; they grew 40 percent of the country's vegetables by 1944.
"New York, New York. Victory gardening on the Charles Schwab estate."
Washington, D.C. Vice President Henry A. Wallace in his victory garden."
SOURCE: Tree Hugger daily newsletter
Sepia Saturday will have other old photos and news from yesteryear by other bloggers HERE.
Today's Quote:
Some of our deepest wounds,
Are judgments, self-inflicted,
Endless paper cuts upon our spirit,
Made by an inherently imperfect 'self',
Despising its imperfection.
When in fact, the green-stemmed fruit,
The infant petals in a sheltering bud,
Are as they should be, in their time,
On schedule to arrive, in their time,
In this Dream of passing seasons.
For here, in The Garden of Time,
What is not yet, becomes what is,
And what is, becomes what was,
And our manifest Being, ever ripening,
Is not yet, now, as it will be, then.
On this Path of Love and Surrender,
Tend gently the seedling of the Heart,
Doing the needful, as you are able,
But then Surrender, giving yourself over,
Sweet unripened...
To The Beloved Gardner.
Are judgments, self-inflicted,
Endless paper cuts upon our spirit,
Made by an inherently imperfect 'self',
Despising its imperfection.
When in fact, the green-stemmed fruit,
The infant petals in a sheltering bud,
Are as they should be, in their time,
On schedule to arrive, in their time,
In this Dream of passing seasons.
For here, in The Garden of Time,
What is not yet, becomes what is,
And what is, becomes what was,
And our manifest Being, ever ripening,
Is not yet, now, as it will be, then.
On this Path of Love and Surrender,
Tend gently the seedling of the Heart,
Doing the needful, as you are able,
But then Surrender, giving yourself over,
Sweet unripened...
To The Beloved Gardner.
Chuck Surface
In The Garden of The Beloved Facebook
In The Garden of The Beloved Facebook
Yes, my mother continued raising a small garden for years after the war. When I was a child, she raised lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, green beans, and pumpkins.
ReplyDeleteGreat that you know all about the garden your mother raised...and fed you all!
DeleteThere was probably some sort of slight uptick in gardening this year.
ReplyDeleteI imagine so. But I can't imagine that 40% of the US could be fed through gardens.
DeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteI loved seeing all these images, of the families and their gardens. My hubby and I had a nice veggie garden years ago, now we just grow tomatoes and herbs. Take care, enjoy your day. Happy weekend!
I'm in an apartment, and only grow pots with herbs. Yes, having the energy to garden is necessary.
DeleteI grew up in a country area where growing vegetables was a long-established way of life; without the garden to supplement the diet farmworkers would not have been able to feed their families on the inadequate wages. Many agricultural workers would take their annual one week holiday in spring to get their gardens planted.
ReplyDeleteOh that's very interesting...and even before farmers were subsidized here by the government, there were years with bad weather and crop failures, so those vegetable gardens must have sustained many families.
DeleteI had never heard of a victory garden. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, Margaret.
DeleteWe didn't have a Victory garden, but we had fruit trees (apricot & plum) and a side garden of artichokes. Later my Mom liked to grow rhubarb chard. In my own family over the years we've had several vegetable gardens with corn & squash & green beans & tomatoes & green peppers and such. When the kids were little they thought it a lark to help pick veggies for dinner, and in one place we rented for a while we found a whole bunch of red potatoes and carrots someone before us had planted, plus there were a couple of apple trees and blackberry bushes galore. Another place had a fig tree. Yum!
ReplyDeleteGreat garden memories. I've had many a pot with tomatoes growing.
DeleteGreat pictures! I love that your grandmother has on heels.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that, and that Poppy has his suit coat on as well as hat...so I think they were home from church probably when the photo was taken. No self-respecting woman would hoe wearing white shoes!
DeleteGreat photos! A nice look back on how life used to be.
ReplyDeleteI don't know for sure that my family's first year of that garden grew much of anything. But I did learn about putting the sandy dirt into little flower pots when I was very young...from my mother.
DeleteYour grandmother seems a bit overdressed for gardening in those pumps! My grandmother was a big gardener, providing lots of fresh and canned foods for her family. I enjoyed seeing these victory gardens.
ReplyDeleteYou have a good eye...I think they were dressed for Sunday church probably...when the photo was taken. I've been interested for years in the arts of canning...but neither of my grandmothers actually did such.
DeleteInteresting photos, valuable history
ReplyDeleteThanks...the Victory Gardens were also very important in feeding families in Great Britain.
DeleteWe need more gardeners to heal the Earth. Especially those who can work in high heels of three piece suits! I'm proud to be married to a champion gardener who stated a satellite garden up the street from our home on a strip of rough ground outside of a school playfield. So far this year she's harvested 339 lbs of vegetables, and donated half to our local food bank. Last year was over 500 lbs, but voles and groundhogs were too greedy this summer.
ReplyDeleteI had not heard of the term Victory Gardens before. But here in Britain in WW2 there was a huge advertising campaign encouraging people to “Dig for Viictory” encouraging people to dig up their lawns and grow fruit and veg.
ReplyDelete