Dig For Victory

Back in the good ole days there was a little thing called the Dig for Victory campaign.  I'm not going to give you a history lesson, TJ's the history buff around here.  The very short version is that during WWI and WWII, the government encouraged folks at home to use empty space to plant vegetable "victory" gardens. The government needed all the money it could for the war, and in the UK (they had a campaign too) the food supplies were critically low from feeding troops and war.  Honestly, it was probably good for the folks her in the US to focus on the veggies and not their babies at War and helped to supplement the fact that many of the men who once worked at the commerical farms were now overseas.  Its estimated that during those times private garden production EQUALED commerical production in the US.  That is just amazing to me.

Last year we planted a garden and unbeknownst to TJ it was my victory garden.  I was just seeing the light at the end of the depression tunnel and it was just so nice to see green and cultivate life. We planted a hodge podge of veggies, not paying much attention to row spacing or plant spacing, but somehow it grew into a bounty of leafy greeness.  If that garden wouldn't have grown I probably would've been a mess.  A seriously unhealthy expectation for vegetables, but it's where I was.   We loved that garden with all our hearts, weeding it and loving it each night.  Guys, I know I sound like a crazy old hippie, but I bet there's some study that links healthy and happiness to vegetable gardens. 

So it's that time of year again and I'm gearing up for the 2011 garden.  I have a laundry list of items I want to plant and have to narrow it down to what can healthily grown in our space, although we doubled the size this year. Crazy Aragons.  I am also considering turning a flowerbed in the back into an herb garden and trying my hand at strawberries.  Probably too much, but you seriously do not know happiness until you pick something in your backyard, dust it off on your shirt, and eat it.

And just a side note, if the price of gasoline, food, and whatever else in the world you love keeps going up, just come the Aragon's house, we'll have the veggies to keep you going. :)