Victory Gardens History

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In 1941 United States citizens were just sitting down to dinner when their whole lives changed with just one announcement over the radio....

Japan had bombed pearl harbor, and they were now at war!

As many men lined up to serve their country, the business Industry took a hard hit. With less men running their businesses, woman made quick work of  filling the men's shoes, in all Industries.
 

Daily life took a hit at every level.
People were urged to conserve goods and contribute to the war. People were given a system of ration stamps that they had to use to buy controlled goods, such as meat, gasoline, clothing, butter, and more.

Victory Gardens itself was a propaganda campaign that was also done in WWI, but it was the WWII propaganda effort that truly inspired a nation to grow food everywhere!  

The campaign pushed media to encourage people to grow gardens and raise chickens in urban and suburban areas, and it worked!

Patriotic men, woman and children all got involved to feed their neighbors, and some even recieved medals to honor their major contribution to the war.

They truly had food growing everywhere! On rooftops, in empty lots, at schools, churches, and in everyone's own backyard.
There were gardens and chickens all throughout even the biggest of cities.

The campaign was such a huge success that it fed more than 40% of the United States, and I believe we can use these same ideas to to revive a whole new generation of growers during the uncertain times of 2020 & beyond!  

I'm asking that all people, throughout the world begin creating media that encourages the whole planet to grow food now to fight against any issues in the current turbulent food system.  

1 in 4 children goes to bed not knowing where their next meal is coming from, this is an atrocity to me, and it should be to you as well. Instead of pushing people into food lines, let's pull humanity together, and GROW FOOD NOW!

If you would like to join our revival efforts it's easy! Just be you! Make media in any way shape or form to encourage people to be self sufficient. The more unique the better! Then join the #GrowFoodNow hashtag to inspire the world!  

  This effort is brought to you by-
-WE THE PEOPLE of 2020 & BEYOND

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I'm a restaurateur and also a self-defense instructor. As a restaurant owner in the beginning of the pandemic I very quickly saw disruptions in the world's food supply chain, as a self-defense instructor I know that "hope is not a strategy" meaning we can hope that bad things won't happen but we need to actually think and act strategically. Fortunately thinking and acting strategically is fun. So, as a both a restaurateur and a self-defense instructor I've not only revived my own food garden this year (pictured) but I've also been encouraging every single person in my life to do the same.

My mom grew up during the Great Depression and raised me during the "malaise days" of the 1970s.  While she was teaching me how to garden she talked about how when she was a kid during WWII every household in her neighborhood a Victory Garden in the "park strip" between the street and the sidewalk. The idea was for American households to grow as much food as possible themselves so the troops can have the food raised by farmers. Indeed by the end of the war American households grew around 40% of all fresh produce consumed in the US. Likewise in the 1970s we were growing food at home to be socially responsible.

The quote here by Rory Miller, he's my friend and teacher (I think I can legit call him my mentor). If you read any books about self-defense he probably either wrote it, or wrote the Forward, or is heavily cited by the author. Recently we were talking about growing food as self-defense--not just own defense but also to defend our neighbors, our communities, our country, and really to defend and protect everyone in the world from hunger. If everyone who has the ability to grow food will do so, then that leaves more food grown by farmers for those who are vulnerable.

Rory said, "Victory Gardens are the nutritional way of Flattening the Curve."

I asked, "Can I quote you on that?"

He said, "Sure."

So I did! 

Please feel free to share if you wish.

Danni and I were talking about family histories and gardening, so I want to share this autobiographical story from my Great-Great Aunt Eliza about growing up desperately poor in antebellum (post Civil War) Georgia. This was recorded by a journalist in the 1940s just before Aunt Eliza's death, and now it's on the internet for everyone to see. I'm going to excerpt the parts that I think are most important to this group and I'll include link at the end for anyone who wants to read the whole thing. BTW, I used to read the entire story to my kids at Christmas time, and whenever they complained about life being too hard and not getting everything they want. LOL!

From my Great-Great Aunt Eliza:

It was hard to make a living in Georgia then. My father died in the war just before it was over, and we never got a pension. I began to hire out when I was eight years old and worked out the first pair of shoes I ever had. We never got paid in money for our work. Mother would walk two or three miles and work hard all day, and only get some beef cracklins, or a piece of tallow, or maybe a dried hogshead. We lived mostly on corn bread. Some days we didn't sit down at all. We didn't have anything but cold corn bread, and Ma kept it in the table drawer. Whenever any of us got hungry enough to eat it we would go get us a piece. Sometimes we would have a little milk. We didn't have syrup, because we couldn't get a start of seed for the cane. If we got flour, we saved it to cook when we had blackberries. Our mule died, and we had to farm with hoes until Brother John's mother-in-law gave him a yearling steer. Then we would plow for us after he did his own plowing.

We never had candy for Christmas and didn't even know that people were even supposed to give Christmas presents. A neighbor, Old Man Clark and Aunt Jennie, used to give us a quarter beef once in a while. We dug up dirt in the smoke house, where Father used to hang his meat and smoked it in water to get the salt. Folks might think this is a lie, but we did it. Ma loved coffee and needed it for her headaches. Once in a while somebody she worked for would give her half a cup of green coffee. You know we used to roast it and grind it for ourselves. She tried all kinds of things for substitutes - parched corn, beans and peas, bran out of meal and even sweet potatoes dried out in the oven.

We made our own clothes. We got hold of some cotton seed, and John opened the furrows for us with the yearling. We dropped the seed by hand and covered it with hoes. We did everything ourselves. After we raised the cotton, we picked it, got the seeds out, carded and spun it, then wove it into cloth, and cut the cloths, and sewed them with our fingers. We made our thread to sew with too. Everyone of us could card, spin, and weave. I could do it today if I had card, spinning wheel and loom. Ma would sit up at night and weave after working hard all day. Then she would make a dress or suit for the one that was the nearest naked.

I never had a bought dress until I was thirteen. I worked out a calico dress. It was dark red, almost brown. I had the dress worked out before I thought about not having any thread. Then I had to go to work and make my thread. Ma had some balls of cotton carded, and I spun them and doubled and twisted to make it strong. Then I washed it to shrink it and finished my dress. It had a full skirt and a bias ruffle around the waist. Somebody had given me a piece of ribbon. I tied it around my waist for a sash and wore my new dress to church next Sunday.

That fall I was thirteen. I hired out to make syrup and got paid a gallon of syrup a day. It sold for twenty-five cents a gallon then. I had to get up before daylight and work all day and until nine o'clock at night. I did everything there was to do about making syrup. I cut cane, cleaned the mill, drove the mule, cooked the syrup, washed the strainer rags and everything.

Lizzie and I supported Ma. I used to walk four miles and wash for seventy-five cents a day, then walk two miles further to the grocery store and take it up in groceries. Then I had to walk six miles back home and carry them. Generally it was dark before I got there, and I was scared to go through the woods at the bridge. Sometimes I would see poor old Ma creeping along to meet me, and I sure was glad to see her.

[http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~crackerbarrel/genealogy/Nancy2.html](http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~crackerbarrel/genealogy/Nancy2.html

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