Victory Gardens

I have been having difficulty getting this blog started. There are so many things I want to talk about, but I wasn't sure how to make them fit cohesively together. Then I realized that this isn't a paper, it's a blog! I am free to write as I please. And in my research I have found some really interesting things!!

The first thing I wanted to share with you all was the discovery of "victory gardening." I have recently acquired a small plot of land in the community garden and cannot wait to get started, so this was of particular interest to me at this moment.

During the war our country suffered food shortages. There was just not enough food to go around and in 1940 people were issued ration cards. In order to meet the demand the government began urging people to grow their own food. Any available green space was seen as an opportunity to provide food for the hungry. Not only were families encouraged to grow food for the summer months they were urged to can the surplus to feed them throughout the winter. Now nowhere does it say that this was a woman's job, but looking at the propoganda posters I found it seems to me they are geared specifically for women:



Apparently, they even had community canning centers where people could bring their food and have it put in real tin cans. This service was provided to them as long as they left 10% of their product to be donated to charities.