Although we associate victory gardens with World War II, Laura Lawson says the term was actually coined near the end of World War I, replacing the more commonly used “war garden.” This, after all, was the conflict in which sauerkraut was renamed “liberty cabbage.”

Lawson’s book describes the festivities on April 1, 1918, designated by the mayor as War Garden Day in San Francisco. The Chronicle editorialized that “the first food gun of the nation” had been fired.

Soldiers, sailors and Marines marched up Market Street to the Civic Center, accompanied by floats displaying the products of backyard vegetable gardens. Twenty young women performed a “dance of war gardens and victory” in front of City Hall.

War Garden Day was only a small part of a huge national effort. In 1917 and 1918, more than 5 million gardens were planted, producing $875 million worth of food. Everyone from socialites (a Long Island woman dug up her polo field to plant potatoes) to schoolchildren got involved. The federal Bureau of Education launched the U.S. School Garden Army with War Department funding. Participating students, called “soldiers of the soil,” were awarded medals for working on school and home plots.

Above an excerpt from ‘Remembering the victory garden’
By Ron Sullivan, Joe Eaton
San Francisco Chronicle July 23, 2008
See complete article here.

See: City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America
by Laura J. Lawson
(Paperback) 2005

Article by Tara Duggan, Chronicle Staff Writer
June 23, 2008

“Last month, Vollen, 44, and her husband, Gary Vollen, 45, turned to MyFarm, a new San Francisco business that took the family’s local and organic diet to a new level: by designing and planting an organic vegetable garden in their Marina district backyard. The Vollens pay MyFarm a weekly fee to maintain and harvest the vegetables that have just started to mature. They can gaze at their garden and dig into just-picked lettuce without so much as touching dirt.

“MyFarm installation costs $600 to $1,000, and maintenance costs $20 to $35 per week, depending on the garden’s size, and includes weeding, harvesting and composting. Those who opt to have larger gardens installed pay a smaller weekly fee and provide food to customers who, eventually, will be able to order a weekly vegetable delivery collected from MyFarm backyards.”

Link to article in San Francisco Chronicle here.

“Amy Franceschini is trying to nurture the victory garden concept back to prominence – this time with a 21st-century agenda. Ms. Franceschini, 37, is the architect of a San Francisco pilot project to revive victory gardens here and beyond. She recently secured $60,000 in seed money from the San Francisco government to pay for 15 backyard plots, with the hope of expanding the effort dramatically after 2008.

“In the next two years, Ms. Franceschini and Mr. Randall will hand-pick 15 people to be the initial victory gardeners. In keeping with San Francisco’s commitment to diversity, the gardeners will mirror the city’s ethnic, geographic and economic spectrum.”

Link to article by Scott Lindlaw of The Associated Press in the Dallas Morning News February 29, 2008.

Link to “Victory Gardens 2007+ ” a concept currently being developed by Garden for the Environment and the City of San Francisco’s Department for the Environment.