In our Victory Garden we are encouraging composting to provide the growing seedlings with nutrients. I recently put together a handout for our staff and visitors to the garden, but really, anyone around the country can follow the advice and have lush rich soil out of kitchen scraps and yard waste. Here’s how.
Yes, you read correctly, that is a Virtual Victory Garden. This week we unveiled the latest of our Victory Garden initiatives: a virtual field trip that explores the steps to grow a garden right through your computer or television screen.
As evidenced by the multitude of home and urban gardens springing up in the past few years, along with the local and slow food movements, students across the country are encountering gardens in their schools, communities, and backyards. This program demonstrates the key steps to grow a successful garden while exploring the important values from the war such as teamwork, community service, and optimism. It also facilitates discussions on nutrition and food choices. Gardening can be one of the many ways to become more active, involved, and healthy.
Here’s what our victory garden looks like today. In less than two weeks it will be teeming with volunteers, plants and seedlings!
We are less than two weeks away from planting a victory garden on site at the museum! During World War II when 40% of the nation’s vegetables came from victory gardens, magazines and periodicals were full of recipes to use that garden produce. Check some out below! (more…)
The National WWII Museum is excited to announce that we will be building a victory garden onsite at the Museum on September 23rd and 24th. Leading up to the garden build we will be providing you with stories and recipes from the victory gardens of the war years.
One big wartime message in the 1940s was the importance of stretching your dollar – and your food. That’s a big reason why people planted victory gardens in the first place; if people could grow their own veggies, more could be sent to troops overseas. Victory gardens provided almost 40 percent of vegetables grown in the U.S. during the war! Combine that with rationing, and people were conscious of using every bit of food they bought or grew and not letting any go to waste. Of course, this led to some odd combinations, like cream cheese and carrot sandwiches and baked beans in applesauce. But in the spirit of ingenuity – especially in the difficult economic times we’re living in – we’ve featured some creative recipes for stretching your leftovers into some fun appetizers! All of these recipes were found in The Wartime Cook Book, published in 1942.
