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Hard times? Bring back the Victory Garden

Every cloud has a silver lining, they say. How true. And we are seeing it right now.

In the depth of the current depression, which politicians and media people still insist on calling a recession, we are thrashing around. We hope against hope that the lifeboat will come bobbing along before we all drown. Meantime, we tear our hair out and console ourselves with pablum of various sorts. Probably unwisely, we trust the leaders who got us into the mess to get us out of it, yet every day another Bernie Madoff heaves into view.

“We’re all in it together.” True, but tell that to any of the millions tossed out on the street by foreclosures in the U.S. They won’t be consoled.

“The fat cats are going to fall further than the lean cats.” Maybe, but they will still have food on their table and will be able to afford it.

“We can’t all starve to death in the cold.” Maybe yes, maybe no. The government we have voted into power is not renowned for its charity or the milk of human kindness coursing through its veins.

The consensus of economists seems to be that the proposed remedial actions of the Canadian government are not going to be enough to do the trick. That’s a guess, but the last thing we need is another gloomy forecast on anything.

But there is something we can do that will put our feet firmly on solid ground, so to speak. It will keep us from starving and start adding a touch of reality to our rootless civilization. It’s called Victory Gardens, no doubt from the movement of the same name in the Second World War.

My memories are pretty faint, but I distinctly remember that during the war there seemed to be a vegetable garden for every house. Vacant lots and fields in the cities were taken up with gardening allotments. It became such an automatic thing that it was several years after the end of the war before we started seeing flower gardens and rose beds again.

East European immigrants in the east end of Calgary 10 years later were digging up the grass strips between sidewalk and street and planting potatoes. Their experiences of hunger and even famine were still too recent and raw to be ignored. They weren’t going to be caught short again.

And now the phenomenon is reappearing in North America. Who would have thought. There is talk of the Obamas planting a vegetable garden in the White House grounds, and it is inevitable that it will be copied across the continent.

Real estate assets are all very well as long as there is someone around with the money to buy them. Otherwise they aren’t worth diddlysquat. A 50-lb. sac of potatoes is another thing. A family can live off that for a while. Fifteen years ago in Jemseg, the owner of the local country store was moaning that he was getting the same price for 50 lbs of potatoes as he did 30 years previously - $2.50. Now maybe is the time of the revenge of the farmers. Potatoes have real value that toxic assets never had.

Of course, a kitchen garden for every home may affect the economic viability of junk food operations. So be it. We can do nicely without them.

In St. Andrews, there are some beautiful gardens. People take great pride in them and it shows. But there is one garden that is gradually changing from being the butt of derisive comments throughout the community to being the envy of many. It is the garden of Larry Lack and Lee Ann Ward.

It is an ordinary town lot, 160 x 80, and the produce they take off that napkin-size piece of land all but frees them from the produce counter in the supermarket. Potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, onion, garlic, peas, beans, tomatoes, squash, leeks... and on and on, and that’s not counting the flowers, trees, ornamental shrubs, fruits. Of course they devote a lot of their time paying for the food they put on the table. But we all spend time doing that, whether we do it by earning money in our regular jobs or planting a garden.

If half the energy that goes into flower gardens went in to vegetable gardens, it would make a significant difference to how a lot of people survive the economic tsunami that is engulfing us. The Lack/Ward garden is not the only one in town that grows a lot of vegetables and fruits, but it is the only one I know of that has gone in for intensive agriculture on a very small piece of land.

It is all part of the new awareness and be-prepared ethos that seems to be taking hold. The government is telling us on TV how to be prepared for various contingencies like power outages, and now we are getting the first hint of the possibility of serious food shortages. Whether they ever occur almost doesn’t matter. As a society, we are short on self discipline. Applying the mind to some of the basics of life, like food, water and electricity, can’t be such a bad thing.

Government support and encouragement would make a tremendous difference.

http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/opinion/article/610323