Victory what?

Seems like I'm not the only one who's got Victory Gardens on the brain: 3,308 people voted for "Victory Gardens 2.0" - a call to launch a national Victory Garden program at the White House - on Change.org's call for ideas for change in America. (Unfortunately, there wasn't much more detail than that on the website... hopefully Obama reads my best practices post if he wants to tackle this one. *wink*wink*)

In case you're interested, Civil Eats had a great history of the Victory Garden in one of its posts on the 11th. According to the website, there actually was a Victory Garden at the White House in 1943 (thank you Eleanor Roosevelt) and during that year gardens across the country provided 40% of our nation's produce. The whole thing actually began as a school garden program, which the Federal Bureau of Education nationalized during WWI with War Department funds.

Given this extensive history, I have to assume that our grandparents and great-grandparents must have had their own list of best practices. After all, they did make this video. If I get a chance tomorrow morning, I may go over to the Library of Congress and see if I can dig up any good tidbits up for you all.