Tea Garden » dig for victory

vegetable garden

the gardener — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:23:21 +0000

I’m working away, in the spare moments (yes, both of them), on building a vegetable garden. It’s been something of a laborious process as I’ve winched myself up the learning curve. I wish my Dad was here, he would’ve knocked it together in an afternoon – he of the ‘I built my own pig sty, cow shed, hay shed, etc etc etc’ fame. Me – I’ve managed to do a deal to get some recycled fence palings, and some pegs, and I’m nailing the palings, paint side in, to form the space for our vege garden. Secretly, I’m quite enjoying the experience. I’ve spent quite a long time working out how to get a workable potager, to cover the land space usefully, to use the palings with the least number of cuts, and generally make it a worthy effort. I’ve painted the palings with used/recycled engine oil to act as a further preservative – the pine has slurped in the oil like a sponge and left a beautiful dark brown finish. Photos as they come to hand. I hope to get the job done in the not too distant future so I can get the late autumn/winter crops in. As we made dinner Marica and I were encouraging ourselves with – ‘This is the last year we buy garlic’ and ‘I can’t wait until we have our own tomatoes/fresh herbs etc’.

Wartime home food prodction

the gardener — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 10:05:59 +0000

According to A History of the Garden in New Zealand,

Wartime had also encouraged home food production. The Press of 5 October 1939 carried a report about a meeting conducted in Christchurch the previous evening by the Canterbury Horticultural Society to promote the production of vegetables in home gardens: ‘Home gardeners could materially assist in the nation’s war effort, said the Mayor (Mr R. M. Macfarlane, MP), who presided.’ The following year, women in the city organised to grow vegetables for institutions such as orphanages that might otherwise go short. They grew their crops at home, and in a half-acre plot they ploughed up at Abberly Park in suburban St Albans. Women’s involvement with gardening of all kinds no doubt became much more pronounced during the war years. Nancy M Taylor suggests in The Home Front, however, that domestic gardening fell off with the onset of war because of mobilisation, overtime and the Home Guard’.

It was not until the middle of 1943 that the Government initiated a ‘Dig for Victor’ campaign along the lines of the British one. Wellington’s Evening Post carried this advertisement on 15 September of that year: ‘Make every yard of ground yield. Beg, buy or borrow a spade and Dig for Victory. That section of yours must not be idle. You will need a garden. A garden will feed you. Grow vegetables that will keep your family fit. Give them a balanced diet and greens the whole year round. Help yourself and help your country. Listen to any North Island YA and ZB station every Thursday night for practical instruction.’ In a similar vein, the introductory article in the first issue of the New Zealand Gardener, published in September 1944, notes that in wartime ‘the raising of foodstuffs overshadows every other branch of horticulture’.

Paul Walker, Towards the Modern Garden. In A History of the Garden in New Zealand, Matthew Bradbury, ed. 1995. Penguin Books, Auckland, New Zealand.

Preparing a school Victory Garden

the gardener — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 23:36:27 +0000

Click to play flash video 4.77 mb, duration 2:08 minutes

I interviewed John Quirk at his home on 19 May, 2007. John remembers how he and a group of his fellow students developed land at Wellington College in 1940. John and his mates were boarders, and is possible the headmaster simply found something for the boys to do. John noted after the interview that some of the boys had to use crowbars to loosen the ‘soil’ as part of the development – the tools can be seen in the photo. John left the school before he got to see any of the fruits of his labour. He took the photo of his school chums, that’s his shadow in the foreground.

Dig for Victory

the gardener — Sun, 20 May 2007 03:38:06 +0000

Click to play flash video 6.68 mb, duration 2:43 minutes

Part of an interview with Ruth Gedye (my Mum) recorded at the Tea Garden on 7 May, 2007. Ruth shares some of her memories of the New Zealand approach to Victory Gardens (the ‘Dig for Victory’ scheme from the 1940s), what was grown, and how Dig for Victory became a social phenomena, including how the implications went further than was first thought. Mum turned 90 on February 1, 2007. She has a wealth of practical gardening and cooking advice. She’s just the best! Wikipedia describes the Victory Garden as:

Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom during World War I and World War II to reduce the pressure on the public food supply brought on by the war effort. In addition to indirectly aiding the war effort these gardens were also considered a civil “morale booster” — in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown.