Victory Garden

Only someone who got up early on Sundays as a kid to watch "The Modern Farmer" could wax nostalgic over this
one but I just have to share. My mother grew a garden like this when I was a kid. She grew up in England during WWII and every family had what was called an allotment which we called a victory garden so of course when she married an American soldier and moved to New Jersey horse country she didn't grow grass. We had veggies and fruit trees and chickens, goats, ducks, dogs, cats and pigs and lots and lots of flowers. I didn't have a store bought veggie til I left home.

Hope you enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31hB5d__UT4

very nice and kind of sweet.

That was fun! My folks always had a big garden. Didn't know how good I had it.

probably didn't quite know ho much work it was either- eh?

It would take a full time mom, grandparent, and two teens to do one of those gardens. and get it all harvested. THen a whole basement of storage- twenty heads of cabbage? fifty qts of tomatoes?

I estimate my earnings from my garden at maybe 75$ this year tho- the value of what I grew in a pretty small space. Mostly tomatoes, cukes, spinach, mustard greens, blueberries, - the green beans and squash were nothing and I did not try potatoes...

We froze a lot. I would 'weed' the spinach pretty hard many cuz I didn't like cooked spinach. Now, I like it raw in salads. Wonder if my dad ever knew how much I hoed up. Don't remember them growing any cabbage.

Jan, I was thinking the same thing; "didn't know how good I had it". What a GREAT video, thank you for sharing it Yehudith! :) The tomatoes in the video reminded me of Dad's gardens... Yummmmm!! Dad grew darn near everything on trellises though; the peas, cukes; green beans were staked... most all the plants were well over 6' tall. ... that video has made me hungry. =)

LOL, over-zealous weeder you!! < =D

Dad didn't have me out "harvesting" with him too often 'cause I'd eat too much instead of putting it into the bushel basket. Peas right off the plant are HEAVENLY!!

Oh, yes, peas off the vine. My dad didn't stake that i remember. Even tomatoes were rambling over straw. Our super diligent harvester of cucumbers was our dachshund mix, Fritzie. He would get the cukes off the vine and gnaw on them and leave them in the grass. Good thing there were lots of plants. Dad was willing to share.

A lot more efficient to grow peas and let kids pick and eat, than bother to gather, shell, and cook them!

Agreed!!!

I agree too!! And it's yummier, also! < =D

At the farmer's market last year, one booth sold qt bags of shelled fresh limas. Can't imagine how much time somebody spent shelling them! hm maybe she did it while sitting behind the table at slow times.

Thanks Yehudith! I was raised that way, too. Thought I'd mention a few features of my family's food system. In addition to large garden, fruit trees we picked berries of all kinds that grew wild along the woods edge and the railroad tracks: wild strawberries, gooseberries, blackberries, etc.
Crab apples, wild plum, wild grape, cherry all became jams and jellies. Wild patches and locations were 'protected' and eagerly watched over by the neighborhood ladies for bragging rights to 'first ripe fruit' and most jars of jelly!
There were wild nuts, mostly walnut and we gathered morel and puffball mushrooms while our uncles would cut 'shelf' mushrooms from the oak/hickory forest. In spring there were always car loads of families gathering greens, scapes, or dandylions for eating and wine.

We raised chicks to broiler size and butchered them in the back yard on one day and after gutting and plucking and singing they were all taken to town and given to the butcher who packaged and wrapped them and put them in our locker along with a quarter or one year a side of beef. The locker was a rented drawer in a walk in freezer facility. Anyone else know about lockers?
Twice a month we would 'go to town' for supplies: the women went to the butcher and locker and the men to the feed store/grain silo for chicken mash or flour, or livestock feed. The sacks became dishtowels and summer play clothes but I didn't like them as pillow cases. The flower sacks were the prettiest and one with a beautiful flower border became our kitchen curtains.

Oh, I caught a whiff of the the chicken butchering in my mind. Back then my smeller worked. I hated the smell when we dipped them in boiling water and then plucked the feathers. Didn't have experience with lockers though. Sounds like a wonderful idea.
Never cared for dandelion greens, or greens of any kind. What did I know? Hehehe

Yep, thanks Jan, I still think lockers were a great ides and a necessity for many as like my family, we were not 'electrified' for a number of years. I remember our first and only refridgerator which ran without fail , repair, or replacement for over 50 years! One just like it still runs in my basement

We kept our wood/coal/kerosene cook stove for "outages' even after we got our first range with the deepwell cooker. By that time we had also gotten indoor plumbing and I no longer had the chore of pumping water which I loved as the pump handle would lift me off my feet when I really got it going, Speaking of going, we also kept our outhouse, which I also preferred in many ways, a two seater. Of course, little kids in Winter could use a chamber pot!

We always had a garden when I was young, but the real gardeners were my moms parents. Gardening with my Grands wasn't the same as chores at home, besides my Gram loved flowers, mostly perennials and selfing varieties.Carrot and beet seed were more important and a wiser use of cash than zinnias.My Grandpap raised potatoes, bushels of them, many of which he sold for "his" pin money, the rest went to a cold storage locker for family use. He also grew Bartlett pears, of which some were sold. The pears for the family resulted in everyone working to can them, When I was old enough, I washed jars, Dad an Grandpap peeled and cored, and Mom and Gram sliced, packed, added simple syrup, and canned as much as 4 bushels in a day. Then often we all enjoyed Grams potpie. So they're Victory garden was started in the 20s and covered 2 wars.

coleup

I'm so glad to meet someone who remembers the old pumps! When my father came back from Germany and brought my mother over he was stationed in New Jersey. They bought the house I was born in which had been built by escaped slaves and never updated. The entire neighborhood was on a dirt road with no electricity or sewer. Everyone had a well with a pump outside and some like us also had a pump indoors. Everyone had an outhouse. Our house was heated by a pot bellied stove in the corner of the living room and cooking was on a wood stove. That's the house I was born in several years later. For some reason probably because the town didn't electrify that neighborhood it wasn't updated. The turning point came when I was about three. My father was stationed in Japan and my Grandmother came for a visit from England. She was not happy! Her baby raised with nannies, etc. Her father would role in his grave! Well!!!! Some how we suddenly had a bathroom, running water and electric lights. Granny G-d bless her packed up and moved back to where people lived in a civilized manner. The rest of the neighborhood managed with wells, pumps and outhouses into the 80's. There's nothing like priming a pump in the middle of winter to get enough water for a pot of coffee. The good thing about the outhouses though was when they were moved every couple years and the hole filled in they were the best garden plots. Rocks would bloom like roses in those spots for years later.

Hehehe

Well, on some horse farms TODAY in Virginia, you can still use those great pumps! There's nothing like the gush of clean, cold water from a pump!
Thank you for the video, it makes my soul happy. With my 13' x 35' garden, I cram so much in, and it rewards all the time!
I think that my Dad taught me well, the good Lord sends the messages for everything to grow, and I have the best time of my life as I do whatever in my garden.
Here's a photo of a clump of organic sweet potatoes I just pulled from the earth this past Saturday.
And my "Golden Globe" turnips are growing merrily away...

Loved the old film. What fun to watch. Years ago Ric and I did quite a bit with our little place. We had chickens, rabbits, turkeys, pigs, goats and the Veggie garden. We had quite a few meals where meat, milk and Veggies all came from our little property. Eventually with both of us working and all the kids activities and the horses taking up space in the barn we stopped doing most of that.

Where I grew up, we had dirt roads (oiled every year by the township to reduce dust, a haz mat condition today), many families had outhouses, and many families relied on a community well. The wells were about 1/4 miles apart, so no one had to venture too far for potable water. We were lucky and lived in the "new" section of the community and had indoor plumbing, which included our own well with.running hot and cold water, a toilet, shower, basin, and sink. Our heat source was 2 kerosene fired pot stoves. We walked about a half mile to our bus stop for school. We had a robust 80 amp electric service, due to the REA (Rural Electrification Agency) so, we could have such luxuries as a hot water heater. Most fruit and veggies were because we grew, purchased and canned them, and we had a party line phone (Colony42-910). Meats were often bought from farmers and kept in your cold storage locker. Ice cream and root beer were homemade , and we swam in the crick.