A Victory Garden

Check out Pheobe Fay over at http://phoebefay.blogspot.com/ . She always posts good stuff in a humorous fashion.
This post is a direct rip off of her latest post. Thanks Ms. Fay, if I were capable of original thinking I wouldn't have to do this. . .

When I was growing up, people were still talking about "Victory" gardens.

From Wiki (this reference seems accurate enough):
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences in United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany[1] 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. Making victory gardens became a part of daily life on the home front.

The old guy that lived next door to us and taught me a lot of what I know deep down inside about gardening always called his little plot behind his garage his "Victory garden." I'd sit for hours and watch him weed and plant. He always had a little row of parsley that I was allowed to help myself to. I'd munch parsley while, without realizing it, learn most of what I needed to know about gardening. I remember one time I decided I was going to plant a garden. It was before I started school so I must have been 4 or 5. I got a shovel and a hoe out of the garage and proceeded to dig a big long trench across the back yard where I was going to "plant lima beans." Now, who knows how "big" or "long" that trench was, but I remember my father coming home from work that evening and being very miffed that there was a big long trench across the backyard, but then being amused when he found out that I had dug it for my lima beans.
Anyway, from my earliest memories I wanted to be a farmer . . . something about getting my hands in the dirt. I always had some sort of garden and kept pet chickens when I was growing up. . . I grew up in a small country town, but people didn't normally keep chickens in our neighborhood.

So gardening is sorta in my blood. With that in mind, I'm going to do a series of posts on gardening and home food production. I might rip a lot of it off and repost and some will be my own thoughts. But ya know, in times like these, aw hell, in any times, knowing how to grow and preserve your own food is something good to know.

Let me leave you with this thought:

Food can be grown anywhere. If there is a space for dirt to set, food can be grown there. . . you can grow in pots on a balcony or in old hard pan soil on a vacant lot. . . on a little strip of ground next to a building or in the middle of the woods. Food can be grown anywhere.

To get started, take an inventory of the space you have available for growing. What are it's dimensions? Is there a water source available. How much sunlight does it get during the day. . . this is very important. Go to the spot in the middle of the morning, mid day and the middle of the afternoon and check where the sun is shining. . . remember, as the year progresses, the sun will rise higher and higher in the sky (toward the very top above your head) from wherever it is today until on June 21, it will start back down. It's very important to know how much sun you're going to have to work with. Also, where is your water source? Is getting water to the spot going to be difficult. It's ok if it will be, but these are things you've got to know beforehand.