V IS FOR VICTORY

" Scatter seeds of kindness everywhere you go. Scatter bits of courtesy- watch them grow and grow. Gather buds of friendship. Keep them until full grown. You will find more blessings than you have ever known."  

TODAY'S SEEDS OF WISDOM

• JUST BLOOMED TODAY
• GARDEN UPDATE
• V IS FOR VICTORY 
• FAUNA
• GARDEN GAMES
• FEEDBACK

JUST BLOOMED TODAY

Mums

Pansies, snapdragons and ivy

GARDEN UPDATE

<sigh> So the video I embedded yesterday didn't show up on the mobile platforms, so if you wished to still see it and missed it yesterday, here's the link. Also some reported that the text was all scrunched together on the mobile phone version. I check it on my Blackberry every morning and on a laptop right after I finish it, so please, if you experience any problems, please let me know so I can fix it or repeat a portion. Unfortunately, I cannot control what the feedburner feeds do to the blog you receive, or what's happening on your end, but I CAN work around them. Don't forget you can always view the blog online at shareourgarden.blogspot.com. Thanks for putting up with me!

Lovely and sunny in the 70's today but I feel like it's the eye of the hurricane or something with that big storm lurking nearby! 

Upcoming teaser alert! I was walking the perimeter of our property today and heard a loud drone sound and looked over to see a HUGE swarm of bees on our stucco wall that borders the property. Remembering our lessons where they said bees are never so gentle as when they are swarming, I approached and boy! did they go after me! Kept at it all the way to the house, and I was stung several times. So these are definitely not our sweet honeybees so tonight the campaign and mission commences...OPERATION:KILLABEE. More tomorrow.(IF we survive!) 

V IS FOR VICTORY!
I have always been fascinated by Victory Gardens, and wanted to learn more about them.

Victory Gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were veggie, fruit, flower and herb gardens planted at private residences and public areas in the U.S., U.K., and Canada during WWI and WWII to reduce pressure on the public food supply brought on by the war effort.

In addition to aiding the war effort, the victory gardens were considered a civil morale booster, in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce they produced, which made gardens popular and a part of daily life on the home front.

In 1917, Charles Pack organized the National War Garden Commission and launched the war garden campaign. During WWI, food production had fallen dramatically, especially in Europe, where agricultural labor had been recruited into the war and remaining farms left devastated. Pack conceived the idea that the food supply could be supplemented by the cultivation of available private and public lands, resulting in over five million gardens and foodstuff production exceeding $1 billion by the end of the war.

A poster campaign (based on the British model) PLANT MORE IN '44! encouraged the planting of victory gardens by nearly 20 million Americans. These gardens produced up to 40% of all the vegetable produce being consumed nationally. Produce from home gardens would help to lower the price of vegetables needed by the U.S. War  Department to feed the troops, thus saving money that could help the military in the war effort. 

 

Although at first the Dept. of Agriculture wasn't happy with Eleanor Roosevelt when she started a victory garden at the White House, they soon jumped on the bandwagon and gardening basic information started to appear in public service booklets. The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture estimates that more than 20 million victory gardens were planted. The produce harvested in these home and community victory gardens were estimated to be 9-10 million tons, an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables.


Victory gardens were planted in backyards and on apartment-building rooftops and vacant city lots "commandeered for the war effort". In 1946, with the end of the war, many did not plant victory gardens, in expectation of produce availability.

 

Since the turn of the 20th-21st century, there has been a resurgence in interest of victory gardens. In March 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama planted an 1,100 square foot "Kitchen Garden" on the White House lawn, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt's, to raise awareness about healthy food.
  
I was so jazzed to find this video, done by the British Ministry of Information in 1941 about victory gardens. Here is the link to see it on You Tube, or if you are viewing online see below.
  

I'm ready for my victory garden...are you?
  

GARDEN GIGGLE

 

What is the most dangerous vegetable to have on a boat?

A leek!

What is the saddest fruit?

blueberries

What do you get when peas fight?

black-eyed peas

How do you change a pumpkin into another vegetable?

Throw it into the air and it will come down a squash

If you hold six apples in one hand and seven apples in the other hand, what do you have?

Really big hands

Why were the strawberries upset?

they were in a jam!

How do you fix a tomato?

with tomato paste

FAUNA

GARDEN GAMES
Answer to yesterdays puzzle "I adore you"

FEEDBACK

 

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