The idea to turn to home-grown produce to stretch a family’s food budget, or have fresh produce, in case of shortages at the store is not a new concept in times of national and international crisis.

According to Wikipedia, victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I and World War II. In the war time, governments encouraged people to plant victory gardens not only to supplement their rations but also to boost morale.

Besides 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. This made victory gardens a part of daily life on the homefront.

The United States Department of Agriculture encouraged the planting of victory gardens during the course of World War II. Around one third of the vegetables produced by the United States came from victory gardens.

“Our food is fighting,” one U.S. poster read.

By May 1943, there were 18 million victory gardens in the United States – 12 million in cities and six million on farms.

Basic information about gardening appeared in public services booklets distributed by the Department of Agriculture. Harvests in these home and community plots was estimated to be between 8.2 million and 9.1 million tons in 1944, an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables.