I am an amateur gardener too. I have a degree in naturopathic medicine and am a certified herbalist. But until our recent move last December I have been unable to grow much of anything. I now have a lot of green stuff all over!! My mother is a master gardener, and I have a lot of gardening and farming friends having built up networks over the years for sources for my herbs. I feel lucky in that my friends around me are very encouraging and are helping me as I go. Both of my grandmothers grew a large portion of the family's food in their own victory gardens and instilled the same ideals in me. My mom of course has encouraged me a lot since I grew up with very little lawn, but a ton of garden to play in. She brings me lots of new plants and helps me to find the easiest way to care for them. 2008-07-18T03:33:55+10:00 false 4042 1139 2008-07-18T03:33:55+10:00 3716 Howdy Om, As you might have seen, our group went global, since there wasn't any other Victory Garden Society out there yet. I'm delighted to find someone else with the same ideals, and you have some great gardens. I may be asking your advice on herbs, definitely. In fact, I think I may start a new thread in this group regarding herbs. Great to have you aboard. By any chance is your name derived from the Terry Pratchett Discworld series? 2008-07-18T07:15:38+10:00 false 4049 1139 2008-07-18T07:15:38+10:00 3667 Hey all, I'm also an amateur gardener. This is my first year in a house, so it's my first year with more than a balcony garden. I've found it to be a very exciting experience. I didn't anticipate the garden being as productive as it is, but we haven't bought vegetables for weeks. And we've had to foist things off on random passers by. I know very little about gardening, especially in this climate (New York), but I hope to gradually expand my vegetable garden and shrink my lawn. This year I stuck with familiar (to me, anyway) summer vegetables and herbs. When we get enough of the lawn converted to garden, I anticipate branching out into things that can be stored over the winter or overwintered in cold-frames. 2008-07-19T15:46:27+10:00 false 4082 1139 2008-07-19T15:46:27+10:00 1237 Hi Libra, Yes, the name is from the Discworld, and it is also a shortened version of an online handle I have had for some time Occult Mastermind. A joking nickname from long ago. :) Good to be hear, I look forward to learning more. 2008-07-20T00:59:20+10:00 false 4085 1139 2008-07-20T00:59:20+10:00 3716 Howdy CMagnus! Glad to have you aboard, I've seen you around some of the messages, and dig your avi. The fedora is probably the best hat ever made. You mentioned window planters. One thing I'd like to try is to grow Basil and other pest-repelling-but-fragrant herbs in window boxses. That way I could leave the windows open to air out the house, but the flies and whatnot wouldn't pass the barrier, and the breeze would blow the fine smell of herbs and spices through the house. I just had a look at your garden, and it looks like you've had MUCH better results than I have this year. My tomatoes didn't do squat. 2008-07-20T01:00:22+10:00 false 4086 1139 2008-07-20T01:00:22+10:00 3667 Om, that's cool. I read Small Gods two or three times now (as well as pretty much everything up through "Thud!" and loved the progression of Omnia from Inquisition to the more modern "Smite the Unbeliever with Reading Material and Convincing Pamplets!" My favorite character though is a tossup between Granny Weatherwax and Sam Vimes. 2008-07-20T01:02:26+10:00 false 4087 1139 2008-07-20T01:02:26+10:00 3667 Hello. I'm a teacher and amateur as well. I planted my first vegetable garden ever this year and I've been calling it my victory garden all along. I love thinking about all the victory gardens from World War II. My veggie garden is at my mother, father-in-law's house and we are already planning to expand for next year. It has been so much fun and we've really gotten the whole family involved, which has been an unexpected pleasure. We're definitely most proud of our tomatoes. We have a ton. My f-i-l bought some plants from a nursery and I planted several heirlooms from seed. Truly, we need a new victory garden effort with today's food crisis. I have read that seed companies have seen huge increases in sales this year just compared to last year, so maybe there is,or will be, a silver lining. 2008-07-20T01:10:03+10:00 false 4089 1139 2008-07-20T01:10:03+10:00 412 Spicy, great to meet you and welcome to the VGS! What classes do you teach? If it's any sort of Earth Science, Sociology, Biology, or History class, maybe you could get your class involved next spring as an extra credit project. I could only wish my tomatoes sprouted at all, but all I get is blossom drop. However, my chili pequins finally bore one tiny pepper, so maybe the tomatoes will soon. Great to have you aboard, and great choice on the heirlooms. A lot of seeds these days have the evil Monsanto gene that prevents 2nd or 3rd generation plants from seed packets. 2008-07-21T01:31:36+10:00 false 4101 1139 2008-07-21T01:31:36+10:00 3667 I can actually remember Victory gardens from when I was a very small kid in South Wales. It wasn't just back gardens that got turned over to veggies but front gardens too had potatoes and cabbages in them. Also people used allotments and my uncle grew all the produce for his family on his allotment long after the war had ended. People also kept rabbits, chickens and ducks for meat. I recall a neighbouring family who couldn't bare to think about eating their Christmas dinner hand-reared duck, and swapped with another duck-rearing family! Food supplies could be pretty scanty, and in Europe many people were starving. If your crop failed, there was no backup at the local store. Food rationing in the UK went on for many years after the war, and although front gardens at least went back to growing flowers to counteract the grey post-war world of shortages, recycled clothing and bomb sites, the tradition of allotments which must have started during the economic crisis of the 1930s, continued through the war and on through the 1950s until a whole generation of allotment gardeners died off and left rather fewer enthusiasts to keep allotments going. I think growing one's own food keeps one in touch with the realities of the natural world, apart from the pleasure of nuturing and eating homegrown food. It is something I would encourage, and have done in the past as a part of my domestic economy. However for me Victory gardens are a barebones attempt to grow food to supplement a scant supply and stave off hunger. Maybe we should think of a new name for contemporary food gardens in countries awash with food, even if most is industrially produced. 2008-07-21T01:58:05+10:00 false 4102 1139 2008-07-21T02:00:00+10:00 1175 My initial reaction was that living in a county with plentiful food didn't erase the victory garden legacy, but upon reflection I think you're right about the connotation. When I was very young, we had a garden that my dad called a victory garden. And it was something my dad did for budgetary reasons. He eventually gave it up because of water rations, though at that point he was making more money. My mom had a container garden that she watered with grey water, and she just called it a kitchen garden. I've always called my garden a kitchen garden as well, but it's fairly small scale. But I think its a mistake to say that victory gardens can't be in countries awash with food. Especially since food isn't always distributed fairly. There are plenty of people in rich countries who don't have enough to eat. 2008-07-21T02:59:50+10:00 false 4103 1139 2008-07-21T02:59:50+10:00 1237 Here in Kansas we have a movement called 'Plant a row for the hungry.' The local food bank takes fresh produce from home gardeners to distribute to those who need help. I try to take what I can down there. I also distribute a lot of my extra harvest to friends and neighbors, as do many of my gardening friends. We often do things like trade baskets to get a taste of what is growing in other parts of the city. I like the name victory garden, it makes me feel connected with my not so distant ancestors and what they were doing. It also helps me to connect with the idea of victory in so many ways. Self-reliance is important to me. So I manage to water my gardens with just our local rain fall and grey water. More than 50% of what I am growing was passed on to me or harvested from eaten produce (often from fellow gardeners). Those two points may not be important to others, even other victory gardeners. But they are points to me in my own victory in my own life. Also knowing that I am facing the same challenges that my great-grandparents, or even further back have already triumphed over makes the work much more fulfilling and enjoyable. I can feel a connection and sympathy to at least a small extent to what they were doing. Even though I do live in an area 'awash with food' I feel much better to not be contributing to extended food miles, or to a larger household ecological footprint. Just some of the points I like about gardening and the nomenclature I can choose to classify it in language terms in my own head. 2008-07-22T01:49:47+10:00 false 4114 1139 2008-07-22T01:49:47+10:00 3716 Good points - I guess that Victory gardens for me are rooted in a particular time and place, ie. war time and its aftermath - I do sometimes wonder what German gardeners called their desperate attempts to grow food during the war (I studied with a German artist and learnt a lot about what it was like for many people in Germany during the war). On the whole I like to keep war out of the garden, and winning and losing, so Kitchen gardens or vegetable gardens remains just fine with me and connects me with generations of people who grew to put food on their table with pride and to share it with others. We have the same 'Plant a row for the hungry" project here and the food bank has its own garden and receives fruit and veggies from local gardeners. Of course, it would be a great improvement if people's incomes were not so low in our wealthy countries that they had to depend on other people's charity. 2008-07-22T02:07:10+10:00 false 4117 1139 2008-07-22T02:07:10+10:00 1175 Hi, my name is Dee and i grow my own veg,fruit and herbs on my allotment in south london uk. 2008-07-22T03:45:58+10:00 false 4123 1139 2008-07-22T03:45:58+10:00 62 I am a bit of a novice gardener. We have grown vegetables for the last two years. This year we moved from pots to a raised bed. We started our seeds rather late for our area, so I don't feel like we have significantly offset our commercial consumption. Hopefully, that will be changing soon. Learning more about best practices would help on that front, I believe. I am very interested in the slow food and local food movements, and though we have yet to harvest much besides herbs and beans, we have switched nearly all of our produce purchasing to our local CSA. As for the phrase Victory Garden, I am not of an age to recall the Victory Gardens of WWII in my lifetime, and I associate the concept with taking personal action and using my land to better the wider political situation. In this case, I think that it is a small act against reliance on oil and against the broken factory farm system, and the way that both tear down our environment. It's a totally different kind of victory certainly, but if it were to become a broader movement, then it would impact some of those key political issues that have led to our recent wars. 2008-07-22T04:10:56+10:00 false 4127 1139 2008-07-22T04:10:56+10:00 3187 Rainymountain, Dee, and Gaidig, welcome aboard! Our movement grows alongside our gardens. w00t! The Victory Garden originated out of war, and then the post-war. But the idea itself can be victory against any number of things: victory against dependence on foreign oil, bland supermarket veg, local hunger, ignorance, and dependence on the corporation for food. For me, my garden represents the most primal obligation of the species: the ability to feed onesself. If we, the common human, lose the survival instinct, the knowledge, and the ability to grow our own food, then we are subsequently owned by the corporations that control the food supply. While this sounds ludicrous on the surface, imagine if tomorrow every store were closed. And then closed again the next day, and the next. How long before rioting, looting, pillaging set in? How long before even robbing the stores could not provide enough food for people to get by? Humanity is but 2 meals from barbarism, my friends, and we live, surrounded by the illusion of plentiful food every day. If our gardens fail, we have Wal-Mart. If we lack the ability to cook, there's McDonald's. But what happens when Wal-Mart owns all the food, and demands a payment you aren't willing to give? What happens when a hurricane (like Katrina) destroys the local infrastructure and stores are just flat out gone or never restocked again? What happens when civilization returns to barbarism? It is then that the victory gardener, who has practiced the delicate art of agriculture, is slowly able to restore the first aspect of Law and Order: Food. That's my primary motivation. Preparedness in advance of Situation X. God willing, it never comes. But if it does, waiting till the day of Situation X is too late to start figuring out how to grow food, if you need to eat tomorrow. 2008-07-24T07:35:02+10:00 false 4192 1139 2008-07-24T07:35:02+10:00 3667 Greetings from Alaska! I am a novice gardener that is looking to get more and more subsistence-based foods and less commercial foods. In the summer, plants and gardens grow FAST (see below picture), but our winters are long and our growing season is short. So getting most of my veggies from a garden isn't plausible right now. I changed my planting strategy to plant more foods that keep (potatoes, carrots, beans, etc) and balance that with greens that grow so fast and herbs that can be dried. I am excited to see what others are doing with their home gardens. 2008-07-24T13:47:39+10:00 false 4197 27395 1139 2008-07-24T13:47:39+10:00 830 aww, it doesn't let you increase the size of the picture. The first one was on 7/2, the 2nd was on 7/9 and the 3rd one was on 7/16. So basically 2 weeks! 2008-07-24T13:49:45+10:00 false 4198 1139 2008-07-24T13:49:45+10:00 830 Welcome aboard, mcav0y! We're glad to have you. One day I hope to visit Alaska, as I hear it's beautiful. I had no idea stuff grows there so quickly. Maybe since the growing season is so short, there's a lot less things competing for the nutrients in the soil? 2008-07-25T00:54:33+10:00 false 4204 1139 2008-07-25T00:54:33+10:00 3667 Mcav0y, It's nice to meet you. This is probably a completely useless comment, but I was procrastinating in a local bookstore and I came across a book (which I didn't buy, and don't remember the title of). So far very useful, hmm? It was by some Mainers who's thesis was that immigrants to the US for some reason stopped farming in the winter. They claimed that in Europe, it's a fairly standard practice (although I'm not sure if this is true). And that it was entirely possible to plant things in the late summer and keep them in cold frames (nothing fancy) and harvest through the winter. I've read elsewhere about extending the seasons a bit, but these people seemed to manage to actually go all year. I know that Alaska has quite a lot of latitude on Maine, so you might not have the day length (they said cold wasn't a problem and listed a bunch of plants that didn't mind it), but if you've got space and can afford or build a cold frame, it might be worth experimenting. One of these days I'll try something like that. There are books on the subject, if you can find them. 2008-07-25T01:02:50+10:00 false 4205 1139 2008-07-25T01:02:50+10:00 1237 I get my winter veggies from a local organic grower by buying a share, and they are mainly root vegetables, with leeks, onions and garlic, and with kale which can be harvested from under snow, and for salad miner's lettuce and another very cold hardy small leaf (whose name I have forgotten) grown under cover. I grew up in the UK (zone 8) with strictly seasonal veggies so roots and the onion family was what we got with the addition of brussel sprouts, various cabbages and watercress. In my prairie garden which probably approximates Alaska's winter conditions absolutely nothing grew during the winter because of very low temperatures and the ground freezing to well below the depth of most plant roots. However long, long summer days and warm temperatures meant that crops were good and there was plenty to store for winter eating. I don't know a great deal about historical European farming, Cmagnus, but 'farming' is more likely to cover grain crops and animals than vegetables, which were grown in domestic gardens or market gardens. It would be hard to build greenhouses or cold frames without sheet glass or plastic so it is likely that the more fragile, warmth loving veggies would be hard to grow in winter. Imagine a cuisine without potatoes, tomatos and rice, and a much greater use of beans and lentils. I am reading 'The Philosopher's Kitchen' by Francine Segan, which updates recipes from ancient Greece and Rome, absolutely fascinating. 2008-07-25T01:36:13+10:00 false 4206 1139 2008-07-25T01:39:27+10:00 1175 Thanks for the warm welcome. Please send some of your warmth up my direction, for we have been having a record cold summer. (45-55 F in the day) As for winter and cold frames, the ground here is frozen solid from late Oct to late April. Cold frames and winter sowing work wonderfully to get a jump-start on our planting season. Our biggest obstacle is the lack of light. In Dec-Jan, we get about 5 hours of functional daylight, which is not enough to keep plants happy. I use grow lights in my garage to start seedings, until about late March when there is enough light to put them by a south-facing window, or (a bit later) cold frame. I have really learned alot (and get excited about sharing) the unique challenges and opportunities of gardening above the 60th parallel. (Did you know that we can't grow eggplant because we get too much light and it needs darkness to set fruit?) I look forward to learning more here! 2008-07-25T04:31:30+10:00 false 4208 1139 2008-07-25T04:31:30+10:00 830 Good morning all! I figured this was an excellent group to join, because I am about to start trying to grow as much of our produce as possible. Since I have 6 mouths to feed and limited gardening experience, I don't think I will succeed in completely avoiding buying produce, but I hope to start making a serious dent in it. I have been growing in confidence, and realize that having a backyard that gets full sun in Zone 9 means I can have year round veggies. :) I am going to try square foot gardening style since I have lovely raised beds for it. Does anyone else remember watching "The Victory Garden" on PBS? I'm sure it is still on, (like "This Old House", I don't think it will ever get canceled) but I remember my mom watching that every Saturday morning and I remember being bored to tears by it! :lol It's amazing how things change, huh? 2008-09-07T00:37:10+10:00 false 4879 1139 2008-09-07T00:37:10+10:00 4284 @craftscout, I think you'll be surprised at how much you can grow. Every year that I've done serious gardening, on about 200-300 sq. max, I have gotten all my fresh produce from the garden for 3 1/2 of our 4 1/2-5 month growing season, and enough frozen sauces and jams to put a serious dent in the grocery bill the rest of the year. Even this year, with a broken ankle and serious under-planting I pretty much haven't bought anything but dairy, bread and pasta since mid July. 2008-09-07T00:56:31+10:00 false 4881 1139 2008-09-07T00:56:31+10:00 3568 Welcome, craftscout. This is also my first attempt at a full-blown vegetable garden. I have about 40 square feet planted with vegetables (not counting the volunteer squash in the backyard or the 6-inch herb and flower "pots" made by my cinderblock walls). I guess the cinderblock pots make an additional 17 square feet. Aside from purchasing milled grain products, dairy, and the odd ingredient, we haven't actually bought anything from the store since mid June. For some reason, this hadn't occurred to me as the logical outcome of growing my own food. I'm trying a winter garden on our windowed front porch of winter-happy greens to keep us in salads over the winter. I've been reading _The Four Season Harvest_ by Eliot Coleman et al; they point out that the northern US is the same latitude as the balmy Mediterranean, so even though the weather tends to be more oppressive, we have the light to sustain winter gardens with a spot of protection. Next year, I hope to build another bed of the same size and to grow more crops for winter storage. 2008-09-07T01:58:40+10:00 false 4883 1139 2008-09-07T01:58:40+10:00 1237 Thanks for the encouragement! I am starting small, and not expecting miracles (I used to joke that my thumb was brown and I have killed cacti!). My first year I just grew cucumbers and herbs. This spring I planted tomatoes (and some other plants that didn't fare as well, but that was due to bad soil conditions). Between the cucumbers being harvested every 3-4 days for 3-4 months (off one plant), and the cherry tomatoes that graced our salads for quite some time without ay MAJOR effort from me (just planting and watering, really), I have the confidence to really give it a go. Wow, that was rambly . . . sorry, I shouldn't try to post before coffee. 2008-09-07T22:43:50+10:00 false 4891 1139 2008-09-07T22:43:50+10:00 4284 Everyone should post before coffee to make the rest of us feel ok about rambling. ;) As for cacti, they can be extremely touchy. In any case, you might try starting with something like peas; you're far enough south you can probably do fall peas. Legumes are great for improving the soil. Beans like heat, but peas like spring and fall. You could also do fava beans, which also like cool weather (but be careful about eating them raw, since some people are badly allergic). If you plant peas or beans, you can buy innoculant (sympathetic microscopic organisms) to help them fix nitrogen, then compost the plants when you're done with them, your soil will be much better in the spring. 2008-09-08T01:23:28+10:00 false 4894 1139 2008-09-08T01:23:28+10:00 1237 I just started some beans this morning! :) And a bunch of other stuff . . . 2008-09-08T02:08:24+10:00 false 4895 1139 2008-09-08T02:08:24+10:00 4284 hey y'all! I'm an 'off the farm' suburbanite transplanted to Colorado from Kansas by way of Chicago. I grow the staples and experiment with a few new things each year. 2009-03-30T02:06:00+11:00 false 8672 1139 2009-03-30T02:06:00+11:00 574 Hi everybody. Some of you already know me, but I am new to this group, so I will introduce myself. I am a Florida native who has been all over the midwest, and parts of the southwest. I have not had a serious garden since I was little, not of any size anyway. We recently moved to Nebraska for my husbands work, and rented a nice house in the country with almost 2 acres of land. Our landlord is very nice, and has said that as long as it looks nice, I can plant whatever I want, with the exception of trees! :) We have sectioned off a 50 x 80 area for veggie garden plot, and I am starting several small flower gardens. Our goal is to grow as much produce as we can to eat this summer, and to put up for the winter. If I still have left overs, I will hit the farmers market. We are also growing our own herbs because we want to have them year round without the expense of buying them at the store. I will try to grow anything once, and I have done 5 swaps this year, 3 on folia, 2 not. Gardening is one of the most fun and rewarding things people can do to relax and keep healthy. I am trying to convince my sister, and one of my friends of this, and am not sure whether I am winning or not!! 2009-03-30T09:17:58+11:00 false 8683 1139 2009-03-30T09:17:58+11:00 5779