During both World Wars, patriotic Americans were encouraged to plant War Gardens in order to help households save money, become healthier, and maintain their morale in wartime. Branded as “Victory Gardens” in WWII, these often-urban produce plots are apocryphally remembered today as having served the purpose of preserving commercially grown crops for military use even though that justification is found nowhere in the U.S. government’s five-paragraph statement of purpose for the Victory Garden program.
Heck, let’s just have a look at the whole list from the official government Garden for Victory guide:
The Victory Garden Program will:
- Increase the production and consumption of fresh vegetables and fruits by more and better home, school, and community gardens, to the end that we become a stronger and healthier Nation.
- Encourage the proper storage and preservation of the surplus from such gardens for distribution and use by families producing it, local school lunches, welfare agencies, and for local emergency food needs.
- Enable families and institutions to save on the cost of vegetables and apply this saving to other necessary foods which must be purchased.
- Provide through the medium of community gardens, an opportunity for gardening by urban dwellers and others who lack suitable home garden facilities.
- Maintain and improve the morale and spiritual well-being of the individual, family, and Nation. The beautification of the home and community by gardening provides healthful physical exercise, recreation, definite release from war stress and strain.
Well, geez, a lot of that slides right into the talking points of the MAHA agenda (don’t expect any actual support for this from the most-geared up Kennedy ever, though). Even sounds kind of socialist if you think about the sharing of the surpluses and the spaces. Also, none of it, other than “war stress,” really even has much to do with armed conflict, at least not exclusively. A lot of the pressure everyone is experiencing right now, what with our country establishing its own due-process-free gulags and with all the sane federal workers getting fired and everything, sure feels pretty historically stressful. Should you need a non-war analogue or just some historical cringe, Gerald Ford also encouraged Americans to grow vegetables at home as part of his Whip Inflation Now, or “WIN” (gag), program.
So, with inflation re-spiking, huge arbitrary tariffs slapped on nearly every day based on one man’s whims, and ICE ejecting so many of the people who harvest the produce at commercial farms, I’d say there are just as many good reasons right now to have a tariff garden as there were for World War gardens back in the day.
It just so happens that I planted a little tariff garden of my own earlier this summer. Right now, I’m practically up to my ears in zucchinis, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and more. There’s even a basil plant for a little extra flavor.
July 19 was the last time I was at the grocery store. I have had what I need to eat and then some without resorting to rampant capitalism (still have deer meat from last season in my freezer too, and found a big haul of golden chanterelles in the woods). Just yesterday I gave a bankers’ box top worth of tomatoes, zucchinis, and onions to a couple visiting friends. It is a time of plenty, at the total cost of a handful of seeds and a bit of sweat.
Now, before I get pilloried on the internet like that poor woman who dared to say she enjoyed having coffee every morning with her husband, a few words for the Privilege Police. Yes, you need a few things — namely dirt and water — to grow a garden. My whole vegetable plot is only about eight feet by four feet, though, and you don’t even need that much space to get meaningful results. I gave one of my little zucchini plants to my on-again, off-again girlfriend (you are supposed to thin them out a little [the zucchini plants, not the girlfriends] if too many sprout) and she has been getting almost as many zucchinis as me from the potted plant at her apartment. There are lots of community gardens out there that offer space for anyone in the neighborhood too. If there is simply no way for you to access several handfuls of soil and a few ounces of water per day, I am very sorry, your existence sounds difficult, but perhaps my column simply isn’t for you and anyway you are probably too busy trying to trade your fingernails for a splash of gruel or whatever to read it.
Depending on where you are in the country, you might be too late in the season for many of the staple crops. There is still plenty of time before winter for some of the fast-growing vegetables, however. And remember, a lot of things do just fine indoors in pots.
Unfortunately, you as an individual do not have much control over inflation and tariffs. On the other hand, you do very much have control over whether you grow at least some of your fresh produce on your own. If nothing else, perhaps you will “improve the morale and spiritual well-being of the individual, family, and Nation.”
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
The post I Haven’t Been To The Grocery Store In Weeks Thanks To My Inflation-Proof Urban Tariff Garden appeared first on Above the Law.
During both World Wars, patriotic Americans were encouraged to plant War Gardens in order to help households save money, become healthier, and maintain their morale in wartime. Branded as “Victory Gardens” in WWII, these often-urban produce plots are apocryphally remembered today as having served the purpose of preserving commercially grown crops for military use even though that justification is found nowhere in the U.S. government’s five-paragraph statement of purpose for the Victory Garden program.
Heck, let’s just have a look at the whole list from the official government Garden for Victory guide:
The Victory Garden Program will:
- Increase the production and consumption of fresh vegetables and fruits by more and better home, school, and community gardens, to the end that we become a stronger and healthier Nation.
- Encourage the proper storage and preservation of the surplus from such gardens for distribution and use by families producing it, local school lunches, welfare agencies, and for local emergency food needs.
- Enable families and institutions to save on the cost of vegetables and apply this saving to other necessary foods which must be purchased.
- Provide through the medium of community gardens, an opportunity for gardening by urban dwellers and others who lack suitable home garden facilities.
- Maintain and improve the morale and spiritual well-being of the individual, family, and Nation. The beautification of the home and community by gardening provides healthful physical exercise, recreation, definite release from war stress and strain.
Well, geez, a lot of that slides right into the talking points of the MAHA agenda (don’t expect any actual support for this from the most-geared up Kennedy ever, though). Even sounds kind of socialist if you think about the sharing of the surpluses and the spaces. Also, none of it, other than “war stress,” really even has much to do with armed conflict, at least not exclusively. A lot of the pressure everyone is experiencing right now, what with our country establishing its own due-process-free gulags and with all the sane federal workers getting fired and everything, sure feels pretty historically stressful. Should you need a non-war analogue or just some historical cringe, Gerald Ford also encouraged Americans to grow vegetables at home as part of his Whip Inflation Now, or “WIN” (gag), program.
So, with inflation re-spiking, huge arbitrary tariffs slapped on nearly every day based on one man’s whims, and ICE ejecting so many of the people who harvest the produce at commercial farms, I’d say there are just as many good reasons right now to have a tariff garden as there were for World War gardens back in the day.
It just so happens that I planted a little tariff garden of my own earlier this summer. Right now, I’m practically up to my ears in zucchinis, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and more. There’s even a basil plant for a little extra flavor.
July 19 was the last time I was at the grocery store. I have had what I need to eat and then some without resorting to rampant capitalism (still have deer meat from last season in my freezer too, and found a big haul of golden chanterelles in the woods). Just yesterday I gave a bankers’ box top worth of tomatoes, zucchinis, and onions to a couple visiting friends. It is a time of plenty, at the total cost of a handful of seeds and a bit of sweat.
Now, before I get pilloried on the internet like that poor woman who dared to say she enjoyed having coffee every morning with her husband, a few words for the Privilege Police. Yes, you need a few things — namely dirt and water — to grow a garden. My whole vegetable plot is only about eight feet by four feet, though, and you don’t even need that much space to get meaningful results. I gave one of my little zucchini plants to my on-again, off-again girlfriend (you are supposed to thin them out a little [the zucchini plants, not the girlfriends] if too many sprout) and she has been getting almost as many zucchinis as me from the potted plant at her apartment. There are lots of community gardens out there that offer space for anyone in the neighborhood too. If there is simply no way for you to access several handfuls of soil and a few ounces of water per day, I am very sorry, your existence sounds difficult, but perhaps my column simply isn’t for you and anyway you are probably too busy trying to trade your fingernails for a splash of gruel or whatever to read it.
Depending on where you are in the country, you might be too late in the season for many of the staple crops. There is still plenty of time before winter for some of the fast-growing vegetables, however. And remember, a lot of things do just fine indoors in pots.
Unfortunately, you as an individual do not have much control over inflation and tariffs. On the other hand, you do very much have control over whether you grow at least some of your fresh produce on your own. If nothing else, perhaps you will “improve the morale and spiritual well-being of the individual, family, and Nation.”
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
The post I Haven’t Been To The Grocery Store In Weeks Thanks To My Inflation-Proof Urban Tariff Garden appeared first on Above the Law.
