Pandemic Sparking Renewed Interest In Victory Gardens

Episode 302 of the Beyond Social Media Show

Podcast Transcript

Listen to this segement of Episode 302 of the Beyond Social Media Show

David Erickson: From Star Tribune‘s Kim Palmer, who reports on Victory Gardens. So, have you ever heard of Victory Gardens, BL?

BL Ochman: During the war.

DE: So my mother was a farm girl; she grew up on a farm in New Ulm, Minnesota. As a kid we always had a garden. We’d have strawberries and corn and beans and peas and all kinds of stuff. And so I grew up loving that. But and I have a balcony that I have a garden on every year.

BL: You found seeds?

DE: Yeah, actually, I did. We did not run out of the seeds but I bought a lot of them. I usually buy them already grown; you replant them. But who knows if that’s going to be available this year, so I bought seeds.

Anyway, this article talks about Hennepin County Master Gardeners. This is an organization that recently called for a revival of Victory Gardens and the Victory Gardens are this thing that people planted their own gardens during the Great Depression. And during WWII.

Now, my mother who grew up on a farm, they were never affected by the Great Depression because they had food all the time. But with spot shortages in grocery stores, it’s easy to imagine upstream problems getting fresh produce.

So they’re calling for people to plant and grow gardens. They have a guide on when it’s best best to plant certain foods.

The Washington Post ran an article on Yelp producing data on businesses where activity rose the most from from the previous year. Guns and ammo are the top because, you know, Apocalypse.

But next was Community Supported Agriculture. So that’s where people are congregating now.

Yelp - Coronavirus Business Aactivity Increase

BL: We do have community gardens in New York but not where I live.

DE: The last thing, though, is Andrew Zimmern’s show on MSNBC called What’s Eating America? Have you seen it?

BL: No.

DE: So, it’s great. Andrew Zimmern is a celebrity chef. He came up in New York. He is a Minnesotan. But now he’s got the show on MSNBC and one of the segments was examining the immigrant labor force that is the foundation of our food distribution system.

They are essential workers, but a lot of them are undocumented. So they don’t have access to health care if they get hit by the corona virus. They surely will–

BL: And we don’t eat.

DE: Exactly. So yeah, plant your gardens.

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