The Modern Victory Garden

"While I could quite easily just buy vegetables elsewhere, the point is I choose not to."                                   

Each of us has our reasons and goals for growing a food production garden.   At a minimum it can provide a tasty supplement of some fresh and organic food to augment mostly purchased items from other sources.   At the other end of the spectrum, some aspire to provide completely for their own subsistence - using their property to provide vegetables, fruits, as well as dairy, eggs, and even meat or fish.   Amazingly enough, many people have achieved good success with this loftier goal of providing entirely for themselves even on modest parcels of property in urban and suburban settings.   A classic example of this is the Dervaes family in Pasadena California.   While I am always inspired by stories of people like the Dervaes who take this to the ultimate edge of self sufficiency – I know for me personally that it is more than I am able (or willing) to do given my other obligations and property limitations.   Similarly, I know there are many people who look at what I do with my garden and consider it “too much” for what they are willing or able to fit into their lives.   There is a wide range of possibilities of how far to take your food production gardening efforts and no matter what end of the spectrum we choose to take it – it is all good!   What matters most is that we each make the determination of the role we want our Modern Victory Gardens to have in our lives and then pursue that goal with vigor!                    

For me, the objectives are pretty straightforward.   I work to produce 100% of my family’s vegetable needs; a significant portion of our fruit needs; and supplement everything else where possible (such as herbs, dried beans, etc).   Recently, I have added to my goals the production of 100% of our eggs as well.   Because I want my garden to produce all of our vegetable needs and more, I tend to view my Modern Victory Garden as a micro farm.   I want to maximize food production from the foot print of property available to me.   This means that I tend to plant intensively spaced; put in larger plantings of any given crop; practice aggressive season extension and succession planting to maximize the amount of fresh harvests available during the entirety of the year; and preserve the over abundance of summer to feed us during the low production periods of winter and early spring.   I monitor how things are going and when something is not producing I make appropriate changes.   Since a large part of our daily food supply comes from the garden, I tend to take it all a little more seriously than others might.   While I could quite easily just buy vegetables elsewhere, the point is I choose not to.   The taste, nutrition, and overall economy of the effort provide constant reward for that commitment.   If anything, I feel compelled to produce even more - so that we may reduce the amount of meat we consume on a regular basis and replace it instead with an even greater amount of plant based foods.   I have no intention of becoming a vegetarian, but I think we would be well served to lower the overall amount of meat in our diet.                  

Have you thought about your gardening goals? Are you on track to meet them?

In early January I received an email from Sheila De La Rosa editor of Oregon Home magazine asking if I would be willing to be interviewed by Margaret Foley for a segment in their regular Trade Secrets series – this particular article to be focused on growing victory gardens.   I am always interested in providing encouragement to others to grow more of their own food, so of course I was pleased to participate as requested.   A few weeks ago I received several copies of the April-May 2010 issue in the mail, which has the final article as completed in it.

You can read the complete article HERE.                                    

I am constantly amazed at the amount of daily traffic and interest this blog and website gets and it just keeps growing over time.   The interest level in food production gardening has definitely spiked up with the enduring recession and heightened awareness of how our daily "living" choices impact the environment and our personal economics.                        

A working kitchen garden has been a part of our household's routine since before we were even married - which is saying something because we will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary on May 18, 2010!   While food production gardening has been part of our lives for a long time, the focus with the garden has changed over the past six years, in that I now actively work to provide 100% of our annual vegetable needs from the garden.   Before that time I did not put nearly as much planning into it and had less lofty ambitions (at least as far as meeting our family's food supply needs are concerned).   I think a greater amount of people are now ready to explore that same shift in focus or are ready to up their "garden game" to a new level for the sake of sustainable and frugal good living.   While the drivers of that increased attention are unfortunate and dire for those that are facing job loss or reduced incomes, it certainly has been positive in that people are discovering (or rediscovering) the real satisfaction that comes from having a greater involvement with working to provide one of the essential elements of daily living - food.                                                

I fervently hope that this surge of interest is long-lived and not just a passing fad.   How does your food production garden fit into your life and what are your personal goals related to it?

2009 ended for us on a rather sad note.   We had to have our elderly dog (Spotty) put down on New Years Eve day.   She was extremely deaf, mostly blind, and was in failing health.   She took a significant turn for the worse several days ago and it was time to ease her suffering.   She was almost 13 years old and lived a good life.   I know we made the right decision, but it does not make it any easier.          

(Spotty 1997 – 2009 / Photo taken in 2003)           

I spent most of New Years day working on The Modern Victory Garden site – wrapping up 2009 and getting things set up for 2010.   Undertook a little reorganization so that the seed starting info, harvest tally, preserving tally, and garden economics data are now under one web page link for each year.   The 2009 Garden Season info link (on the side menu bar to the right) is now finalized with a last update to the garden economics page.   The calculated net economic benefit of my garden for 2009 (values after annualized costs) was $258.62.   The detail of costs and calculated benefits is included on the page.   I have already done the vast majority of my expenditures for the 2010 garden season purchasing seed, seed potatoes (necessary this year because of the late blight infection last year), raspberry plants, fertilizers, and germinating soil mix.   I always do a big purchase process at the beginning of the season and then make very little expenditures through the remainder of the year.   The purchases combined with what I have on hand generally get me through the season.   The only other purchases to be made (that I am aware of!) is for some additional half whiskey barrels and potting soil for the greenhouse.                            

The 2010 Garden Season info link is largely just set up with empty templates for future entries with the exception of the Seed Starting page, which is complete.   I changed this up a bit for 2010 by putting all of the seed starting activity on the schedule – both indoor starting and direct seeding.   It provides a more comprehensive schedule this way and also gives a more complete inventory of what I am growing in the given year.                

The kale and Chinese cabbage starts (in the shop under grow lights) are coming along nicely.   The lettuce seedlings had really poor germination (older seed).   I threw away the remaining lettuce seeds as a result and will just wait until the fresh seed order arrives to get the early spring lettuces started.   I also got the main bed of root crops (parsnips and carrots) covered with a grow tunnel last weekend.   The primary reason to cover it is to keep my visiting rabbit out of the bed.   Up till now he has only been  bothering the back beds of carrots and has not found this main winter root crop planting area.   However, it was only a matter of time before he did, so I wanted to get it protected.   Covering the bed also provides the benefit of keeping the soil warmer so it is easier to dig after periods of hard freezes. 

In just a few short weeks, it will be time to get the seed starting process underway for 2010.   In the meantime, I am hoping to get started on my winter shop project to make some planting jigs.