gardening: February 2008 Archives

Nearly 100 years ago, citizens of the US, Canada, and the UK planted victory gardens in their yards and on their rooftops in support of their countries' wartime efforts.  From Wikipedia: "It was emphasized to home front urbanites and suburbanites that the produce from their gardens would help to lower the price of vegetables needed by the War Department to feed the troops, thus saving money that could be spent elsewhere on the military: 'Our food is fighting', one poster read."

Today, home gardeners are at it again -- but this time, there's a twist.

In his book In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan says that "to reclaim this much control over one's food, to take it back from industry and science, is no small thing; indeed, in our time cooking from scratch and growing any of your own food qualify as subversive acts.  And what these acts subvert is nutritionism: the belief that food is foremost about nutrition and nutrition is so complex that only experts and industry can possibly supply it." (My emphasis.)

Anti-nutritionism is just the start of it... Other home gardeners are picking up the plow to help fight global warming, mediate the risk of terrorist attacks on our food supply, and eliminate the ingestion of pesticides and other toxins.

Several online citizens aren't keeping the dirt to themselves, either -- they've issued a challenge to us all: Plant an organic garden this year.  A big garden. A pot of tomatoes. A single basil plant. Anything. Just start sourcing some of your food as locally as you can -- at home.

According to Wikipedia, victory gardens "produced up to 40 percent of all the vegetable produce consumed nationally" during WWI and WWII.  With the proliferation of suburban homes since that time, it really makes me wonder what we're capable of now.  What kind of impact could this have on our industrial food system?

Want to help me find out?