When times are really tough, your garden is your best friend. In every era of scarcity, people have planted things. The simple act of planting food is a way to take back some control. whether its from war, depression, or economic uncertainty. That ancestral instinct to plant is what gave birth to something history remembers as the “Victory Garden”.
The idea began during World War I, when the Wilson administration encouraged Americans to plant “war gardens.” The goal was to ease pressure on our national food supply. Remarkably, by 1918, people planted millions of them! One estimate puts the total number of quarts of preserved produce from those gardens at more than a billion by war’s end (Fleet Farming, 2025). Together, everyone discovered that growing food was a winning formula for fighting adversity.
By the time World War II came around, the idea had grown. Victory Gardens popped up in backyards, in schools, vacant city lots, and even the White House lawn! Eleanor Roosevelt planted hers in 1943. Americans embraced the movement with astonishing enthusiasm.
From LA History: How the Victory Garden Helped Win WWII.
By 1942–43 ish, roughly 20 million households were tending these gardens, and, in 1944, those small plots collectively grew into an estimated 8 million tons of produce! This was nearly 40 percent of all vegetables consumed in the United States (History.com; National WWII Museum).
This image is from the National Park Service.
Almost half the nation’s vegetables were grown by everyday Americans working their own small corners of earth. What we learned was that communities could feed themselves when conditions demanded it. We didn’t need a few factory farms controlling the supply, demand, and PRICE.
It’s 2025. Yes, we’re living in a very different time, but we think we’re facing a similar challenge. Inflation has stretched budgets thin. Grocery prices are so out of whack. Supply chains are fragile and unpredictable. People everywhere are wondering what they can do to make this easier on their families.
One answer is that we can grow food. All of us can.
Like those earlier generations, you don’t need acres and acres to make a difference. You just need a little ingenuity.
Here in Maine, November is the month most people assume the harvest season has ended, but a victory garden mindset doesn’t think that way!
For example:
This is the perfect time to plant garlic.
We can slip spring onion sets and shallots into protected beds.
We can plant spinach in a cold frame. (It’s so sweet in the winter.)
One of the most fascinating historical greens, mâche (which was grown in many WWII-era gardens) may be one of the hardiest plants you can grow now, too. It tolerates temperatures down to 5 degrees!
For people with high tunnels, it is even possible to sow peas. You can let them overwinter and they’ll leap forward as soon as the soil warms.
If you lack cold frames or tunnels, your sunny windows can supply an entire winter’s worth of lettuce bowls, microgreens, or herbs!
For us, the symbolism is worth mentioning, too. Victory gardens are a way of saying: I can’t control what’s happening, but I can grow a small, steady corner of it. That small corner can feed your entire family. It can save quite a bit of money. It can teach your children about resilience. It can remind us that we aren’t powerless.
When spring comes (and it will) we can then plant crops that deliver more bang for the buck. The families of the 1940s knew this almost intuitively. They planted veggies that stored well. Crops like potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, beans, tomatoes, winter squash, kale. They’re dependable, easy to grow, and can fill your jars and freezers.
Think of your garden as a bank account. Every time you add compost, mulch, leaves, or manure, you increase its capital. Healthy soil like that reduces the need for fertilizer. It retains more moisture. It is not prone to stress and grows more food for less money.
Victory gardens, even today, are about seeing uncertainty and choosing resilience over helplessness. Victory gardens are about hope.
If the world feels unpredictable, plant something. If the economy feels tight, plant something. If you want a sense of agency, a sense of grounding, a sense that tomorrow can be shaped by things you can do, plant something.
Remember that victory gardens once fed a nation in crisis. This year, they can absolutely feed your family, a neighborhood, even your state of mind.
Plant something.
The National Park Service is a wonderful resource where you can read more of the Victory Garden history. It’s fascinating and so inspirational. Check it out here. (There are a ton of pics!)
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/victory-gardens-on-the-world-war-ii-home-front.htm
More about Maine and winter greens here: More about winter greens here: https://www.mofga.org/resources/greens/winter-greens/
Stay tuned to our blog where we’ll share resources about cold frames!
References
Fleet Farming. “The History of Victory Gardening and Why We Should Bring Back Victory Gardens.”
https://fleetfarming.org/the-history-of-victory-gardening-and-why-we-should-bring-back-victory-gardens/
Meares, Hadley. “How LA’s Victory Gardens Helped Win WWII.” LAist, 21 April 2020.
https://laist.com/news/la-history/how-las-victory-gardens-helped-win-wwii
National Park Service. “Victory Gardens on the World War II Home Front.”
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/victory-gardens-on-the-world-war-ii-home-front.htm
National WWII Museum. “Victory Gardens: Food for the Fight.”
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/victory-gardens-world-war-ii
Schumm, Laura. “America’s Patriotic Victory Gardens.” History, 2014.
https://www.history.com/articles/americas-patriotic-victory-gardens
Smithsonian Libraries & Archives. “Gardening for the Common Good.”
https://library.si.edu/exhibition/cultivating-americas-gardens/gardening-for-the-common-good
USDA National Agricultural Library. “Victory Garden Aids.”
https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/small/exhibits/show/victory-gardens/victory-garden-aids
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