When I was a kid, I remember watching a show called “The Victory Garden” on PBS. I didn’t understand what a “victory garden” was until I got older and saw some documentaries on World Wars I and II and how the people of America drew on their greatest resource…the bountiful land around them…to feed themselves with one hand while fighting a global war against freedom with the other.
Victory gardens became the symbol of self-sufficiency in trying times. But now the “victory” that gardeners are fighting for is the ability to use every inch of their land as a renewable resource. This battle is not fought against foreign governments, but against local ones. It’s not waged between entirely different cultures with different languages, but between friends and neighbors…or at least people who ought to be friends.
A former co-worker posted on her Facebook profile tonight that, upon arriving home this evening, she found her three chickens were slaughtered in her own yard. A few days before, someone in the neighborhood had issued flyers all over the block criticizing her for having backyard chickens. These chickens not only provided food for her family and for others she shared with, but were also family pets! What has this world come to?
Will you lend your support to local initiatives to change restrictive ordinances on what plants you can and cannot grow in your own yard? Start with the Victory Garden Initiative. It’s based in Milwaukee, but is applicable to all who want to not be tied to questionable food sources and contaminated food supply chains.
Related articles
- Dig for victory: how your garden can help beat climate change (ecoamerica.typepad.com)
- Does Your Kitchen Garden Save You Money? (billshrink.com)
- Victory Gardens: Now a Misdemeanor (blogher.com)
- Chickens coming home to roost, find henhouse foreclosed (kansasreflections.wordpress.com)
- Lose a lawn, gain a front-yard bounty (sfgate.com)
- A Call To Farms – Why America Needs A New Victory Garden Movement (buildingsustainablelifestyles.wordpress.com)
- Gardener Thretened With Jail For Gardening – July 15, 2011 – Update (survivalfarm.wordpress.com)
- ‘Food corridor’ brings urban neighbors together – The Olympian (mentalflowers.wordpress.com)
- What were four ways that world war 2 affected american life at home (wiki.answers.com)
