A Weapon Against Food Shortages: Victory Gardens, Ahoy!
Gardening is not just a hobby, but an essential skill
When nations collide and conflict arises, ordinary citizens are often called upon to do the extraordinary.
We are called to fight, to tighten our belts, to extoll the virtues of patriotism and be prepared to lay down our very lives in defence of our nations and the people who live within our borders.
But while heroism on the battlefield is glorified and held aloft on a pedestal, there’s a lot more to national defence and prosperity than military service. Not all catastrophes are wars; some are more related to domestic instability or natural disasters.
Sometimes it’s a pandemic, or a famine, or a natural disaster.
Sometimes your neighbouring country elects a fascist who is trying to destabilize your economy and force you to surrender to annexation.
Yeah. We’re really having fun here in Canada right now.
But when the crisis is not military in nature—yet, give Trump time!—how do you help? What can you do to contribute to your country’s wellbeing? How do you survive during hard times?
What practical things can you do?
Well, given what’s going on in the world right now and the fact that we’re approaching planting season here in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s one thing you can do that will provide some serious benefits.
You can start a Victory Garden. You can learn to grow your own food.
The term ‘Victory Garden’ originated during the first and second World Wars.
One of the biggest problems with having your military engaged in warfare overseas is the necessity of producing and transporting enough food to keep them going. It’s a substantial undertaking and it creates a massive draw on public agriculture and transport industries back home.
To help deal with this issue, ease the economic burden on the public and free up resources for the war effort, several governments—including the U.S., Canada, the UK and even Germany—came up with a simple solution.
They put out a call to their citizens to join the war effort by growing their own food at home.
People tore up their yards, tilled public parks, filled their homes with plant pots and sowed everything from vegetables to fruits to cooking herbs. Everyone with the ability to grow even a few small greens or a couple of tomato plants did exactly that.
It was a huge success.
The skill of gardening made a similar comeback during the Covid-19 Pandemic, especially as people were forced to remain home and self-isolate. Gardening saw a big surge in popularity with all of the free time people had, and home-grown foods helped make up for the shortfall caused by supply line disruptions abroad.
It even turned out to be beneficial for our mental and physical health.
Here in Canada, we’re facing a similar disruption and upheaval, as a lot of our food supply is imported from the United States, which is no longer a friendly country. The cost of food is rising, and it isn’t likely to come back down any time soon.
But with Spring right around the corner and the soil starting to thaw, we have a great opportunity to break ground and get our hands dirty.
After all, if there’s one thing that brings a community through a crisis intact, it’s mutual aid. And there’s no better way to make friends than sharing seedlings or baskets of freshly picked vegetables from your own organic garden.
Thanks to my lovely neighbour who gave us some magnificant Jalapeño seedlings last year. The slugs were all over them, which made the harvest difficult, but they produced a ton!
Gardening sounds very simple on paper, but it does have a bit of a learning curve to it. It takes a lot of research and a lot of work to maximize productivity, but it’s very much worth it in the end. Trust me; the first time you eat a cherry tomato fresh off the vine, you’ll be in love.
Home grown, fully ripened vegetables taste so much better than the ones you buy in the supermarket. They’re more nutritious, too—and if you grow organic, you have full control over the chemicals you and your family are eating.
As regulations are stripped away in the United States—thanks for ditching Chevron Deference, SCOTUS—that in and of itself might be well worth the effort.
Life After The Chevron Doctrine: Don't Drink The Water, America
On June 28th, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States overruled the Chevron Deference ruling.
If you’ve never started a garden before, I’ve got your back. I can’t give you a full course on it, at least not right this second, but I can give you a quick primer to get you started!
You can start a small garden pretty much anywhere, even if you’re living in an apartment in the big city. As long as you have the space for a few pots, a container for draining water, and a south facing window, you’re golden.
You can even make do without the window if you can plug in a grow lamp.
The bad news is that you won’t be apply to supply all of your food this way. You’d be amazed at how much land it takes to provide a full year’s supply of food, especially if you’re feeding multiple people.
Still, saving even a little bit of money on groceries is helpful these days.
If you own your own house, you’re even better off. Your local area might have bylaws about what kind of gardening you can do, so you should check that before getting started, but usually a small plot is allowed.
I live in a small suburb-turned-village, and my neighbour managed to convert nearly half of their giant yard into a glorious vegetable garden. I’m ridiculously jealous of their pumpkin patch; I’m tempted to knock on their door and beg them for lessons!
Alternatively, if you want more space than your home can accomodate, you can always look to see if there are community gardens near where you live. Usually they’ll let you rent space for a season where you can grow whatever you like, although you sacrifice a little control due to sharing space with other gardeners.
We had one in my neighbourhood, but it was torn up by a bear. Yes, a real bear. Yes, I was there when it happened. We didn’t lose all of our plants, but the critter certainly had a wonderful feast off of our labour.
Growing an indoor container garden is no more difficult than growing houseplants. They have different needs, but once you learn them it’s as simple as keeping up their care.
You’ll need larger, deeper pots, trays for letting excess water drain, and a light source that provides a full colour spectrum. Different vegetables require different amounts of light and water, so doing a little quick research on the varieties you’re growing is a good idea.
For example, snow peas take very well to growing in pots, but they like a little bit of shade and a cooler temperature. Lettuce and spinach are much the same. Tomatoes, on the other hand, need full sun and warmth to really take off.
If you’ve got lots of different plants with different light and heat requirements, try spreading them around through your home. Different rooms can have slightly different climates, and you can create more space that way.
Consider keeping a fan near your plants too, especially if they’re all grouped together. Good air circulation helps prevent mold in damp soil, and the moving air helps strengthen fruiting plants so they’re less likely to break.
Drainage is important in all kinds of gardening, but in pots it’s especially important since the space is limited. You don’t want the roots of your plants sitting in water, that’s how you get mold and rot.
Aim for pots that have holes in the bottom, set them in deep trays that can catch the excess water, and make sure your potting soil has a good mix of perlite to absorb some of the moisture.
Vegetables are thirsty plants, so you’ll need to water fairly often, but it’s important to find a healthy balance to avoid drowning your green friends.
As well, it’s a good idea to research varieties of vegetable plants that grow well in container gardens. Bush beans tend to do better than pole beans, as they require much less space and water to produce. Cherry tomatoes do better than beefsteaks.
But that’s just a general rule of thumb. If you’ve got enough sun and a large enough container, you can even grow sweet corn indoors. I’ve seen people take big plastic tubs from Walmart and drill holes in the bottom—if it works, it works!
If you’re growing indoors, you should also look for self-polinating cultivars. Unless you plan to invite bees into your home, or do the polinating by hand with a paint brush. You can do that, but I prefer the non-stinging easy route of letting the plant handle itself.
In-ground gardening outdoors gives you more space to work with, but it also requires more work.
You have no control over the weather and climate outdoors, and limited control over pests and disease. That said, there are some things you can do to help mitigate some of those risks.
Checking your hardiness zone—that’s your local region’s climate, and the plants that grow well in it—is a must. Every country has its own hardiness map, so be specific. Here’s Canada’s, if you’re curious!
Plan your garden out according to what the map tells you. Plan to plant at the right time, paying close attention to the time of year when the seasonal frosts end or when the drought season kicks in.
Pick varieties based on the length of the season they need; here in Canada, I need to prepare for a short growing season and a hard winter. I pick fast-growing varities that will produce in time to harvest before Fall. Or, I pick vegetables that are hardy enough to withstand a cold snap in late autumn.
If you know your area gets heavy rainfall, pick vegetables that need loads of water. Work with nature, not against her.
If you pick a fight with Mama Nature, she will humble your ass. Trust me. You ain’t winning.
It’s important to note that with Climate Change battering at the door, growing zones are actively shifting from year to year, so keep a close eye on the weather forecast and plan accordingly. In a heat wave, you’ll need to water way more often than you think you will. If there’s a cold snap coming, you’ll need to lay a sheet over your plants to protect them from frost through the night.
Gardening is farming on the small scale; it’s hard work. You can’t half-ass it and get good results. My lazy arse has tried, and I have failed. Sigh.
It also pays to know what kind of soil you have to plant in. My area has really heavy clay, and it’s taken a few years of layering dead leaves and grass, good compost and potting soil in the same place to create a good garden plot.
The clay gives good nutrients, but it’s hard for plants to set roots in it. Laying on heavy organic matter and letting the worms do the tilling for me has loosened it right up and turned the clay into rich black loam. Work smarter, not harder.
Oh, and a quick note on planting; seeds don’t like to be buried deep. Tiny seeds can literally be sprinkled right on the surface of your soil and watered in. Burying them deep makes it hard for them to sproud and come up to the surface where the light is!
Check the back of your seed packets for information on spacing, depth and quantities when the time comes to sow—that’s a fancy word for ‘sticking seeds in dirt.’
For a quick primer on improving your soil for gardening and making compost at home, I’ll link a channel here for you to check out. GrowVeg is an outstanding resource, and very fun to watch!
It’s also a good idea to get your soil tested for acidity and possible contaminants before planting straight into the ground. If you’ve ever sprayed your lawn with pesticides, it’s especially vital.
It’s generally not advisable to serve poison to your family. Just saying.
The best time of the year is harvest time.
Picking the literal fruits of your labour is the most satisfying experience, and eating your first snap pea or tomato, or throwing your first home-grown ear of corn into a pot cannot be beat.
You’ve never tasted sweet corn until you’ve put it into boiling water within five minutes of picking it. You have no idea how much flavour they lose during transport from the farm—and most vegetables you buy aren’t even fully ripened when picked.
There is no contest in flavour between a home-grown fully ripened heirloom tomato, and a barely-red slicing tomato from the supermarket.
Every time you harvest a crop, you free up space for the next; succession planting means you get to keep harvesting all through the season. Just keep in mind how long of a season you have left, and plan accordingly.
If you plan to plant longer-growing plants in succession, consider starting the seeds indoors and hardening them off outside in pots so they’ve got a good head start when they go into the ground.
Alternatively, replace them with quick-to-harvest greens like lettuces or peas. Or even the gold-standard of quick crops, red radishes!
For more bang for your buck, choose plants that have an added bonus of being 100% edible from fruit to root. Snow pea plants are entirely edible, both the pods and the sprouts. Radishes and beets, too. Carrot greens taste like parsley, and I promise—they’re not poisonous at all. They’re related to dill, believe it or not.
I chop them up and toss them into soups near the end of cooking. It’s a great way to add flavour.
You can even pick edible flowers for companion planting, like nasturtium or pot marigolds. Some of them have the added benefit of attracting pollinators and warding away pests. Do be careful and research thoroughly to make sure you’re getting the right kinds of flowers, though.
Don’t accidentally plant monkshood, or you’ll be planning funerals. They’re pretty, but absolutely deadly if you eat them by mistake.
When your harvesting season ends, it’s time to amend your soil for the winter and start planning next year’s garden. Make sure you rotate where your crops are planted, so you aren’t growing the same crop in the same place twice.
Crop rotation helps save you from diseases like nightshade blight that can decimate your garden.
As we move into uncertain times with hardships on the horizon, the ability to provide for ourselves and improve our community sustainability is vital.
Knowing how to grow our own food helps ease some of the burdens on our shoulders, and gives us the chance to build skills that will come in very handy in the future.
As I said above, it’s also a great way to start up a network for mutual aid; when you start gardening, your neighbours will notice. I’ve met more people by starting a garden than I ever did just living here for fifteen years.
Gardeners love to congregate and chat, share tips, exchange seeds and give each other gifts of fresh vegetables when we happen to get a bumper crop—that is, when a plant produces more than you actually need.
Bonus points if you grow your gardens close together and wind up helping each other with the hard labour. Nothing builds a friendship faster than mutual growth.
Get it? Eh, it made me laugh anyway.
The bottom line is, starting a Victory Garden now and learning the ropes will help you more than you could ever imagine. It’s good for you, your community, and your whole country. It will help lessen the blow of the lean times ahead.
This Spring, let’s break ground and get our hands dirty.
Solidarity wins.
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My wife is already starting to get her gardens ready for planting season. You're right, it won't be much longer.
"Nothing builds a friendship faster than mutual growth." This one's for your Mister. ;)