Category — war gardens

Written by the public and gathered by the BBC

A selection of letters:

Edinburgh allotments
By Elizabeth Gray

At the beginning of the war I was registered as a botanist at Edinburgh Botanic Gardens.

I was enlisted as a gardens allotment volunteer and would go round advising people how to grow food. The same thing happened in the 1914-18 war. Ground was dug up and made into allotments at Blackford hill and Inverleith Park and round about the Meadows in the heart of Edinburgh.

Most folk in Edinburgh weren’t gardeners and we showed them what to do. There was a limited number of seeds and plants and I used to take some seed from my own garden to give to people.

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By Twigs Way
Shire
2008

The humble allotment has a surprisingly turbulent history. Initially the right to an allotment was proposed as a charitable means by which the poor could grow their own food and stave off starvation, but it quickly entered political and social debate. During the World Wars the allotment became the focal point on the home front, as families took part in the Dig for Victory campaigns. The post-war years saw a decline in the popularity of the allotment as the supermarket took over from home-grown produce. Successive governments condemned allotments in favour of new housing.

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By Twigs Way & Mike Brown
Sabrestorm
December 2010
240 pages

Beans as bullets’, ‘Vegetables for Victory’ and ‘Cloches against Hitler’: these slogans convey just how vital gardening and growing food were to the British war effort during the Second World War. Exhorted to ‘Grow More Food’, then to ‘Dig for Victory’, Britain’s ‘allotment army’ was soon out in force, growing as many vegetables as possible in suburban allotments, private gardens, even the grounds of stately homes.

Richly illustrated with contemporary photographs and ephemera relating to the ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign, this expertly researched, highly engaging and informative account also includes archive images of home front gardening, garden produce and advertisements.

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There were many poultry magazines 100 years ago, perhaps as common as our computer magazines today. They were full of photos, stories and ads for a large audience. The North American population was closer to its rural roots then. But even during the First World War, people looked back to a time when they were more involved in agriculture. Mike

From the Editorial
Everybodys Poultry Magazine
September 1917

“… to increase the production of poultry and eggs, to increase the general interest and especially to, in some way, bring back the thousands upon thousands of small and backyard breeders who flourished years ago, who kept high grade standard-bred stock, and were in part at least, producers as well as consumers.”

“There are great questions requiring consideration and united action, but this one of the backyard breeder in city and village alike is foremost of all.

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Title: Cliffside Arbutus Tree. “He painted for over 50 years, totally unrecognized, every week, every month, every year.” See more of Donald Flather’s work here.

Flash from the past – 1979 article in City Farmer Newspaper

By Kerry Banks
City Farmer Newspaper
Vol 2 No. 1, October, 1979
(City Farmer began in 1978 by publishing a newspaper. Kerry is a founding member of City Farmer. He is an award-winning freelance writer and journalist. See bio further on.)

(1979) – Dr. Donald Flather and his wife Grace have one of the more unique vegetable gardens in Vancouver. It’s the last remaining ‘victory garden’ from the city’s World War Two home food production effort.

Beginning back in the early forties, the Government of Canada made a concentrated effort to get city and town folk involved in growing their own food. Large advertisements were placed in the daily newspapers.

“Plant a wartime garden,” they urged. “Home production of vegetables is needed now more than any time during the war. Help by growing the vegetables your family needs.”

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Fresh vegetables were collected from gardens all around the coast for the men serving in minesweepers and small naval crafts.

Thousands upon thousands of vegetables were given out

“Another Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) activity was centred on our shores. Men in minesweepers and small naval craft were often unable to spend long enough on shore to get fresh vegetables. In East Anglia, WVS members approached people who have been evacuated from their homes for permission to collect the vegetables from their gardens and take them to the docks. All around the coast and in Northern Ireland the scheme caught on. Thousands upon thousands of vegetables were given out. In winter cakes and mince pies were added to the hampers.”

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Daina Mileris, of Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood, picks dead leaves off a tomato vine at the garden at Peterson and Campbell avenues on Sunday. The vibrant urban garden is something of a historical monument in Chicago, having once been the site of a World War II victory garden. Photo by Heather Charles.

Project re-cultivates urban agriculture in West Ridge

By Robert Channick,
Chicago Tribune
September 2, 2010

Excerpt:

A vacant lot at Peterson and Campbell avenues in Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood has blossomed this summer into a vibrant urban garden — and something of a living historical monument. Once the site of a World War II victory garden, the long-fallow property near the northern edge of the city is blooming again with everything from tomatoes to corn.

Reviving the nearly 70-year-old wartime campaign to replenish scarce produce, the Peterson Garden Project is true to its roots, but also reflective of a growing trend toward localized, community-based agriculture.

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Dog carrying pig food to pig bin

Feeding food scraps to livestock in World War II

This practice is not common today and it is banned in most countries due to animal health concerns. But in England during the war, the activity was promoted and seniors, who grew up in England, remember the Pig Man.

Revised extracts from ‘A Sheltered Childhood ~ Wartime Family Memories of an East Acton Child’
Contributed by Brian Brooks
The Brooks family lived at 18 The Green, East Acton, West London.

“Not only paper and metal had to be salvaged but now food swill to feed animals, such as pigs, as well. This would help meat rationing. A round metal bin and lid, nick-named the ‘Pig Bin’, was put by the lamppost opposite The Bye, beside the path to the public air raid shelter on The Green. This was for everybody’s food scraps and meat bones. The bin was emptied every few days by unhappy-looking POW’s in a very smelly lorry.
The bin became very dented and the lid wouldn’t fit on properly. It also split and smelly yellowy gunge oozed out. People started to avoid walking too close to it because of the smell, unlike the flies which loved it. It was my job (more war work for me!) to take the food scraps to the pig bin.

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Blind Victory Gardener – Hats Off! 1940

Note: The commentator says Mr Sharper has won the ‘Dig For Victory’ Diploma.

Several M/S’s of elderly gentleman Mr Sharper kneeling down picking potatoes from his allotment in Manchester. The commentator says that he is actually blind. M/S’s of the man wheeling a barrow round his garden.

See the video here.

See more films on the next page.

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Bomb crater, blitzed gardens 1942

London. M/S of Westminster cathedral, the camera pans across to a bomb crater near it which has been turned into a garden. M/S of Mr Hayes who has grown and tended the flowers and vegetables. Various shots of him in the garden.

Various shots as girls of the National Fire Force walk into a big allotment with their gardening tools. The garden has been grown where rubble used to be and now boasts a variety of vegetables. Various shots as the girls tend the garden. C/U’s of little tomatoes and apples. M/S as cabbages are gathered.

See the video here.

See more films on the next page.

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Royal Visit to Allotments – Queen Mary and King George V – 1914

Shot of King and Queen along with Mayor and probably Mayor’s wife; heading up a group of people on this tour; walking along through a garden. Pan as they pass rose bush. Next a man is holding up a piglet. The Queen laughs, pats the critter and scratches its ears.

Shot of the King and 5 other men standing in a garden. George points with his cane at what seems to be a huge prize lettuce. Pan to Queen. Then CU Queen Mary in a line with others; looking down at something.

Note: Queen Mary looks positively jolly in some of these shots! Location of events unknown – somewhere in Britain.

See the film here.

More films on the next page.

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Book to accompany a major exhibition at the Imperial War Museum.

The Ministry of Food at the Imperial War Museum, Britain

The Ministry of Food examines how the British public adapted to food shortages during the Second World War, learning how to be both frugal and inventive on the ‘Kitchen Front’.

Marking the seventieth anniversary of the introduction of food rationing in Britain, the exhibition shows that growing your own food, eating seasonal fruit and vegetables, reducing imports, recycling, and healthy nutrition were just as important in 1940 as they are today.

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Dig For Victory

Ministry of Agriculture
Britain 1941

“During the Second World War, getting the most from your little plot of land was crucial. This film, produced by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1941, explains how to prepare an area of ground for growing your veg, and shows why not having space is simply no excuse.”

From Toons At War.
1940′s image.

Disney licensee W.L. Stensgaard produced a Victory Garden sign that featured Donald Duck chasing pests from his garden. The sign was available in two sizes and was sold in five and dimes, hardware and grocery stores.

One version of the sign featured the illustration printed on a masonite board attached to a 24-inch long stake. This sign was produced in six oil colors and had a wholesale price of $10.80 per dozen. The suggested retail was $1.69 each.

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28 Minutes of classic radio humour by two of the greats.

Listen here:

Gracie: You were right George, we’ll just a have a sweet little Victory Garden.

George: Good. We’ll plant some asparagus.

Gracie: And we’ll plant some beets on top of it.

George: On top of it?

Gracie: Ah huh. So when the asparagus start to come up, they’ll tickle the beets on the bottom and they’ll come up sooner.

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Although there is no story to accompany this graphic in the 1941 edition of the comic, it is a wonderful promotional image, which would have reached millions of kids during the war. Superb!

Your car – like your Victory Garden – is a national asset these days. So care for it wisely! Spare it excessive wear with stem-to-stern Marfak chassis lubrication.

Larger image here.

WWI Home Garden Seed Advertising by Haskell Coffin 1919

Haskell Coffin (1878 – 1941) A versatile illustrator, gracing covers for several magazines, Redbook and The American being two long-term stints. Becoming famous as a portrayer of American beauty, the Coffin girl could be found on note cards, sheet music, calendars, decorative boxes, fashion catalogs. His “Joan of Arc Saved France” WWI poster is well known.

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National Emergency War Garden Commission. Sow The Seeds of Victory Posters in cigar store window. Circa 1914-1919.

Teaching With Documents: Sow the Seeds of Victory!
Posters from the Food Administration During World War I

Excerpt from the National Archives

“To achieve the results, the Food Administration combined an emphasis on patriotism with the lure of advertising created by its own Advertising Section. This section produced a wealth of posters for both outdoor and indoor display. One proclaimed: “Food is Ammunition-Don’t waste it.” Another featured a woman clothed in stars and stripes reaching out to embrace the message: “Be Patriotic sign your country’s pledge to save the food.” A third combined patriotism with a modern healthy diet message. At the top, the poster encouraged readers to: “Eat more corn, oats and rye products-fish and poultry-fruits, vegetables and potatoes, baked, boiled and broiled foods.”

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Photographer Brown Bros. New York,

1918 Cabbages and Queens
Women wearing bloomers, working in a vegetable garden.

Farmerettes of 1918, 100 years after birth of Mrs. Bloomer. In the early Victorian era, the American, Mrs. Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818-1894), caused quite a stir when she wrote an article for her feminist publication ‘The Lily’. She tried to promote the idea of women abandoning their petticoats for a bi-furcated garment later known as the bloomer fashion. She suggested that woman would find trousers, like those worn by Turkish women, easier to wear than their voluminous heavy skirts.