The Return of Victory Gardens.

[irishbobcat]

The Return of Victory Gardens. By Jesse Zwick, NewRepublic, July 17, 2009. "Congressman Jay Inslee introduced a bill this week that would provide federal funding for community gardens-public plots of land that can be subdivided for the purpose of growing food or flowers. This might sound odd, but Inslee's actually emulating a long line of politicos who have voiced their support for such projects -- notably FDR. Jill Lawson's book City Bountiful chronicles the ways in which Americans have turned to gardens throughout history as a way of combating hardship. Originally started as charity projects meant to provide 'moral uplift' to slum-dwellers in the 1890s, they matured into a full-blown 'Victory Garden' movement during the two world wars. In World War II, FDR famously urged every citizen to grow a vegetable garden, citing local food production as essential to the war effort. All told, in 1943, Americans grew eight million tons of produce in such gardens -- one-third of all vegetables grown that year. Today, community gardens are intended to address issues like crumbling inner-city neighborhoods and a dependence on fuel-intensive agriculture -- not quite as galvanizing as the Nazis, but still important. And, as Corby Krummer reported in The Atlantic last year, these vegetable patches can play a role not just in increasing access to fresh produce, but in creating meaningful employment for teens in some of America's toughest neighborhoods."