During both World Wars, people were encouraged to plant fruits, vegetables, and herbs on their properties. The public was also encouraged to plant similar gardens in public parks. These types of gardens were coined “Victory Gardens” by George Washington Carver and have been grown throughout the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and Germany.
The intention was two-fold. One, these gardens were able to help supplement the nutrition of the public during times of war when rationing was not uncommon. The second, and arguably more important reason, was to help give people a purpose and keep their morale up during such uncertain times.
What is a Victory Garden Now?
In more modern times, Victory Gardens are still popular especially during times of uncertainty. They allow people to grow fresh and healthy food for themselves and their family.
Growing your own food to provide for your family certainly doesn’t go out of style. Being self sufficient and learning how to use everything on your homestead are great skills to have at any time.
If you’re ready to start your own, let’s look at how you can get started.
How to Plan
Victory garden plans can be done the same as any other normal garden planning. The main thing to keep in mind when planning a Victory Garden is that it will likely be in a small areas, such as a front or back yard.
Because Victory Gardens use small spaces it’s important that their plans maximize the use of every inch or foot of the garden area.
A few ways to do this are with square foot gardening or container gardening. Both of these methods allow maximum planting in minimal space.
What to plant?
What is in a Victory Garden? Anything that you want, it is up to you. However, you want to keep in mind, as we discussed above, your space limitations.
Making sure to plant easy to grow vegetables is important so that you can put in a small amount of work and get a decent harvest. Also including fast growing vegetables, like zucchini, yellow squash, lettuce, radishes, and cucumbers, is important so that you can start harvesting food for your family as soon as possible.
Also make sure when figuring out what to put in your Victory Garden, that you include any vegetables that are favorites for your family. Don’t waste space with vegetables that your family will not eat.
If you’re interested in a few commonly grown fruits and vegetables for Victory Gardens, check out how to grow tomatoes, how to grow peppers, and how to grow blueberries.
How big is a victory garden?
The size of a Victory Garden really depends on how many people you need to feed, what plants you would like to grow, and how much space you have available.
Some things to think about are how much your family will eat vegetables, if you’re planning on freezing or preserving vegetables for later use, and also the average harvest of the plants you are planting.
For example, it is possible to get up to 10 pounds of zucchini from a single plant! make sure to do your research on each type of plant you will be growing and make sure you have the capacity for them.
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