4 ms·

The article discusses the "victory gardens" which are quite interesting to me. Gardens I know of in the US zone 6 (without grow lights that help start the seaso

The article discusses the "victory gardens" which are quite interesting to me. Gardens I know of in the US zone 6 (without grow lights that help start the season early) are productive a few months of the year. Early spring you get leafy vegetables, but the bulk comes July/August and wanes in September. This schedule certainly doesn't seem like a major help in war time, so did they do something else? Preservation, better soil so food lasted longer,different planting varieties that produce spring - fall?

graeme 7y ago
All food used to come from those growing periods. I think you grew certain kinds of tubers that could be stored over winter in a root cellar or made into preserves. If you look at the picture on Wikipedia, potatoes and onions and carrots are prominent: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden That said I don't know the answer and I'd be curious what they did in winter in wartime.
- Retric 7y ago
  Preservation is largely unnecessary. If a garden provides say 1 month of food for a family, then that family buys less food for that month. Being self sufficient was possible, but takes significant labor and land.
  - graeme 7y ago
    This sounds plausible, but....you couldn't just "buy" more food into the economy in winter. You had to store it somehow. A victory garden would let other farms concentrate on more storable foods though, if the gardens accounted for greens in summer. But actual victory gardens had storable foods, I think.
    - Retric 7y ago
      That was already happening. Large scale agriculture was already set up to do long term preservation. People normally eat storable foods every month. Bread for example generally does not last long, but it’s made from grains that could have been harvested 2+ years ago. Modern preservation methods can push that to 10+ years at minor cost. That said, canning and other food storage was common. It was simply not a major focus of victory gardens. Otherwise the focus would have been on potatoes and other easily preserved foods not vegetables.
benj111 7y ago
Brassicas (cabbage, kale) stand happily all winter, as do leeks. Certain types of lettuce and salad can stand all winter especially with a bit of protection. Potatoes, carrots, onions/garlic store happily over winter. Beans and peas can be easily dried. Fall (Autumn) is when I would say the bulk of the harvest comes in. Maincrop Potatoes and carrots, beans plus 'tree crops', apples, pears, nuts etc. Spring is always the problem (its called the hungry gap), you can't really grow anything of any size that soon after winter, and biannuals are wanting to flower. The internet tells me I'm in zone 7, but quite exposed, so I guess not that different "better soil" I think they actually tended to overcrop the soil, in the UK the yields were starting to fall in 44/45 because the soil was starting to become exhausted. https://dig-for-victory.org.uk/ https://dig-for-victory.org.uk/ That has guides and stuff for gardeners of the time
bluGill 7y ago
In WWII refrigeration was still somewhat new, even if you were young enough to not remember life without them, you had neighbors and grandparents who did. In 1875 you had to live with the same growing months and store food for the rest - those ways were still personally remembered by many. In fact some people didn't get electricity until the 1950s and so they still were using the old ways because there was no other option. (My grandpa remembered his dad paying $600 to connect the farm in 1936 - about $12000 today so you can understand why most neighbors didn't)
asark 7y ago
Ask an old person :-) Canning will go a long way, especially if you plan your garden with that in mind. Used to be (mid 20th c) just about every family grew veggies and canned them for the Winter/Spring, excepting rich city-folk. Old recipes are built around what's in-season or what's probably still in your root cellar from last Summer/Fall. Get-anything-any-time is a very new thing—I remember an awful lot more produce falling out of availability in certain seasons as late as the '90s. You still see signs of it with price/quality variability and a few things that remain seasonal—so, cooking those old recipes at the right times of year still makes some sense.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
There were a lot of pamphlets and campaigns around storage, and rotating so your veggies lasted the longest possible time. We weren't quite as distant from the land and nature as we are today, so most had some connection with seasons, what to grow and when. Here's one ww2 era guide to storing carrots, and how to make a clamp: http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/photos/storageguide.jpg http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/photos/storageguide.jpg Most houses still had a larder or cellar, so there was more often a cool, dark area to keep boxes of onions, carrots, spuds, apples etc where they might keep for months. Far longer than most manage today, because few do anything beyond "throw them in the fridge" which can often shorten possible life! There was even the Anderson shelter[1] that was the air raid shelter everyone could put in the garden. Designed for six, they were often handy tool shed and veggie storage for smaller families! Not much help if it was one of the many that tended to flood, but if you had a dry one... [1] http://primaryfacts.com/506/anderson-shelter-facts/ http://primaryfacts.com/506/anderson-shelter-facts/

graeme 7y ago

All food used to come from those growing periods. I think you grew certain kinds of tubers that could be stored over winter in a root cellar or made into preserves. If you look at the picture on Wikipedia, potatoes and onions and carrots are prominent: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden That said I don't know the answer and I'd be curious what they did in winter in wartime.

Retric 7y ago
Preservation is largely unnecessary. If a garden provides say 1 month of food for a family, then that family buys less food for that month. Being self sufficient was possible, but takes significant labor and land.
- graeme 7y ago
  This sounds plausible, but....you couldn't just "buy" more food into the economy in winter. You had to store it somehow. A victory garden would let other farms concentrate on more storable foods though, if the gardens accounted for greens in summer. But actual victory gardens had storable foods, I think.
  - Retric 7y ago
    That was already happening. Large scale agriculture was already set up to do long term preservation. People normally eat storable foods every month. Bread for example generally does not last long, but it’s made from grains that could have been harvested 2+ years ago. Modern preservation methods can push that to 10+ years at minor cost. That said, canning and other food storage was common. It was simply not a major focus of victory gardens. Otherwise the focus would have been on potatoes and other easily preserved foods not vegetables.

benj111 7y ago

Brassicas (cabbage, kale) stand happily all winter, as do leeks. Certain types of lettuce and salad can stand all winter especially with a bit of protection. Potatoes, carrots, onions/garlic store happily over winter. Beans and peas can be easily dried. Fall (Autumn) is when I would say the bulk of the harvest comes in. Maincrop Potatoes and carrots, beans plus 'tree crops', apples, pears, nuts etc. Spring is always the problem (its called the hungry gap), you can't really grow anything of any size that soon after winter, and biannuals are wanting to flower. The internet tells me I'm in zone 7, but quite exposed, so I guess not that different "better soil" I think they actually tended to overcrop the soil, in the UK the yields were starting to fall in 44/45 because the soil was starting to become exhausted. https://dig-for-victory.org.uk/ https://dig-for-victory.org.uk/ That has guides and stuff for gardeners of the time

bluGill 7y ago

In WWII refrigeration was still somewhat new, even if you were young enough to not remember life without them, you had neighbors and grandparents who did. In 1875 you had to live with the same growing months and store food for the rest - those ways were still personally remembered by many. In fact some people didn't get electricity until the 1950s and so they still were using the old ways because there was no other option. (My grandpa remembered his dad paying $600 to connect the farm in 1936 - about $12000 today so you can understand why most neighbors didn't)

asark 7y ago

Ask an old person :-) Canning will go a long way, especially if you plan your garden with that in mind. Used to be (mid 20th c) just about every family grew veggies and canned them for the Winter/Spring, excepting rich city-folk. Old recipes are built around what's in-season or what's probably still in your root cellar from last Summer/Fall. Get-anything-any-time is a very new thing—I remember an awful lot more produce falling out of availability in certain seasons as late as the '90s. You still see signs of it with price/quality variability and a few things that remain seasonal—so, cooking those old recipes at the right times of year still makes some sense.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

There were a lot of pamphlets and campaigns around storage, and rotating so your veggies lasted the longest possible time. We weren't quite as distant from the land and nature as we are today, so most had some connection with seasons, what to grow and when. Here's one ww2 era guide to storing carrots, and how to make a clamp: http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/photos/storageguide.jpg http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/photos/storageguide.jpg Most houses still had a larder or cellar, so there was more often a cool, dark area to keep boxes of onions, carrots, spuds, apples etc where they might keep for months. Far longer than most manage today, because few do anything beyond "throw them in the fridge" which can often shorten possible life! There was even the Anderson shelter[1] that was the air raid shelter everyone could put in the garden. Designed for six, they were often handy tool shed and veggie storage for smaller families! Not much help if it was one of the many that tended to flood, but if you had a dry one... [1] http://primaryfacts.com/506/anderson-shelter-facts/ http://primaryfacts.com/506/anderson-shelter-facts/