Organic Gardening

The New Victory Garden

By Roland Kemler

In the 1940’s the United States government asked the people to plant gardens to help support the war efforts. During that time millions of people planted gardens called Victory Gardens, and harvested nearly a third of all the vegetables consumed in the country. Gardening became a family or community effort planting vegetables, herbs, and fruit trees. Now with the growing state of economic uncertainty many people are again looking for ways to not only, stretch their food dollars but also to avoid the high cost of healthcare by making better lifestyle choices, and so, the idea of the “Victory Garden” seems to tackle several problems at hand.

Even Michelle Obama is setting an example by planting a food garden at the White House, as did Eleanor Roosevelt in 1943 during another time of national crisis. In Eleanor’s time, some 20 million people grew their own food to relieve the food shortages of WWII. While Michelle Obama’s 1,000-square-foot Organic Vegetables garden will help to provide food for the first family’s meals and possibly even formal dinners, she also talked about the garden as a means to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruits and vegetables. With the growing national concern about obesity and diabetes especially among our children, more physical activities and better natural food choices should be encouraged. Creating and maintaining a garden perfectly fits that prescription.

When you think about it, growing your own food becomes part of the solution to many growing problems associated with modern living. Such as global warming and reducing your carbon footprint, like me, many people today are concerned about the foods we buy in the supermarkets, what kind of chemicals were used on them, how far have they traveled to reach the shelves in your local store and how long have they been there.

Growing your own organic food can be both fun and healthy. Not only is it great physical exercise and a way to slow down and reconnect yourself with your environment, it also provides an opportunity to take full control of what you put into your body. There are few greater satisfactions than slicing a fresh, juicy tomato and putting it on your sandwich, preparing a salad and knowing all the ingredients came from your own backyard or picking fresh organic beans for a hearty dinner meal. Starting a successful organic vegetable garden may take practice that may span over several seasons but don’t become discouraged if you make some mistakes because we all learn from our mistakes. You will find that organic gardening may become the most rewarding hobby, or lifestyle, you have ever started.

Roland Kemler

Copyright 3/23/09