PRIME June 2020 I 9
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VICTORY GARDENS ARE MAKING A COMEBACK
By Jan Cashman
I
f there is a positive to come out of the Coronovirus pandemic, it is that people have gone back to gardening. Staying home has
given people the time to garden and the desire to grow healthy
food for their families. The benefits of fresh air and relaxing exercise are apparent. While the “stay- at- home” orders leave us with a feel-
ing of helplessness, gardening leaves us feeling empowered. Gardeners are in control and less anxious when they don’t have to depend on
the grocery store for their total diet. In our garden center, we have trying. My husband Jerry calls the new popularity of gardening the seen a huge resurgence in garden“Corona Victory Garden.” ing. Vegetable seeds are in short supply and sold out earlier than Victory Garden History: Durever before. Tomato and vegetable ing World War I, the public was plants are selling faster than we can encouraged to garden to help feed grow them! These days everyone starving people in Europe. At seems to be gardening; raised bed first the gardens were called “War gardening is what gardeners are Gardens,” but by the end of World
War I, they came to be called “Victory Gardens.” Food rationing in the spring of 1942 (World War II) brought on the resurgence of Victory Gardens. People were encouraged to use any idle land— parks, playgrounds, vacant lots, backyards—to grow food. In cities, they gardened in flower boxes on balconies and apartment rooftops. Eleanor Roosevelt even started a garden on the White House lawn. Rural citizens were encouraged to grow huge gardens that could produce enough vegetables for a year for the whole family. Crops that could be grown easily and canned or stored well such as beans, beets, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, kohlrabi, squash, and potatoes were sug-
gested. The government realized that these Victory Gardens were a good thing, not only for the food they produced, but because gardening boosted the public’s patriotism and morale. Whether you are a first-time gardener, long-time gardener, gardening in a raised bed, in the ground, or in pots on your balcony, it is springtime in the Rockies. So get out there and plant something! Gardening therapy will turn off the stress. Jan Cashman has
operated Cashman Nursery in Bozeman with her husband, Jerry, since 1975.
