A Victory Garden For Trying Times

“A compelling and intimate reflection on love and grief and ordinary things that comfort and sustain us.” — Alison Smith, award-winning journalist Ever since her childhood on a Niagara farm, Debi has dug in the dirt to find resilience. But when her husband, Peter, was diagnosed with cancer in November, it was too late in the season to seek solace in her garden. With idle hands and a fearful mind, she sought something to sustain her through the months ahead. She soon came across Victory Gardens — the vegetable gardens cultivated during the world wars that sustained so many. During an anxious winter, she researched, drew plans, and ordered seeds. In spring, with Peter in remission, her garden thrived and life got back on track. But when Peter's cancer returned like a killing frost, the garden was a reminder that everything must come to an end. A Victory Garden for Trying Times is a personal journey of love, loss, and healing through the natural cycles of the earth.

A Victory Garden for Trying Times is a journey through a year of love and despair, and a testament to healing in the natural cycles of the earth.

A poignant story of a young girl desperate to do her part during uncertain times, and the loyalty, sacrifice, and friendship she finds in her community. It’s 1943, and everyone says the war will be over soon–World War II, that is–but Teresa Marks wonders exactly when that day will come. Her older brother, Jeff, is fighting overseas, and Teresa worries about him, hoping he’ll get home to Kansas safely. As a way of speeding Jeff’s return, Teresa and her dad help the war effort by planting a victory garden. For two years, they plant tomatoes (Jeff’s favorite!) and win taste-testing duels with a curmudgeonly neighbor. But as the war begins striking closer to home, Teresa's faith in secret weapons, victory gardens, people, and in life itself begins to shatter. Now Teresa must rely on her community, and her own strength, to get her through to the other side.

Includes over 800 recipes for using fresh vegetables, plus essential gardening information and ideas on how to use your harvest.

Reproducing a rare 1827 plant and seed catalogue, possibly the earliest extant catalogue of its kind in Canada, Early Canadian Gardening presents an extensive range of garden plants -- trees, shrubs, fruits, and flowers -- that were grown for food, medicines, and dyestuffs as well as ornamental purposes. Eileen Woodhead provides a detailed description and brief history of the cultivation and use of each plant up to the present day. Most of the descriptions are accompanied by detailed drawings by the author, who found and grew many of the original varieties in the catalogue. The book provides a valuable account of the business of horticulture in the first decades of the nineteenth century -- the practices of importers, merchants, farms, and households -- placing it within the broader context of social history. It includes an appendix of historic sites and botanical gardens in Ontario, as well as sources for heritage seeds. Early Canadian Gardening is a ground-breaking account of the practice and significance of horticulture during the period of settlement in Upper Canada and stands as a remarkable work of historical botany. It will be an invaluable source document for horticulturists and botanists, historians, and garden enthusiasts with an interest in heritage plants.

The passion and urgency that inspired WWI and WWII Victory Gardens is needed today to meet another threat to our food supply and our environment—the steep decline of pollinators. The Pollinator Victory Garden offers practical solutions for winning the war against the demise of these essential animals. Pollinators are critical to our food supply and responsible for the pollination of the vast majority of all flowering plants on our planet. Pollinators include not just bees, but many different types of animals, including insects and mammals. Beetles, bats, birds, butterflies, moths, flies, and wasps can be pollinators. But, many pollinators are in trouble, and the reality is that most of our landscapes have little to offer them. Our residential and commercial landscapes are filled with vast green pollinator deserts, better known as lawns. These monotonous green expanses are ecological wastelands for bees and other pollinators. With The Pollinator Victory Garden, you can give pollinators a fighting chance. Learn how to transition your landscape into a pollinator haven by creating a habitat that includes pollinator nutrition, larval host plants for butterflies and moths, and areas for egg laying, nesting, sheltering, overwintering, resting, and warming. Find a wealth of information to support pollinators while improving the environment around you: • The importance of pollinators and the specific threats to their survival• How to provide food for pollinators using native perennials, trees, and shrubs that bloom in succession• Detailed profiles of the major pollinator types and how to attract and support each one• Tips for creating and growing a Pollinator Victory Garden, including site assessment, planning, and planting goals• Project ideas like pollinator islands, enriched landscape edges, revamped foundation plantings, meadowscapes, and other pollinator-friendly lawn alternatives The time is right for a new gardening movement. Every yard, community garden, rooftop, porch, patio, commercial, and municipal landscape can help to win the war against pollinator decline with The Pollinator Victory Garden.

Community-based initiatives to preserve and protect our food supply Historically, seed companies were generally small, often family-run businesses. Because they were regionally based, they could focus on varieties well-suited to the local environment. A Pacific Northwest company, for example, would specialize in different cultivars than a company based in the Southeast. However the absorption of these small, independent seed businesses into large multinationals, combined with the advancement of biotechnology resulting in hybrids and GMO seeds, has led to a serious loss of genetic diversity. The public is now at the mercy of the corporations that control the seeds. In the past few years, gardeners have realized the inherent danger in this situation. A growing movement is striving to preserve and expand our stock of heritage and heirloom varieties through seed saving and sharing opportunities. Seed Libraries is a practical guide to saving seeds through community programs, including: Step-by-step instructions for setting up a seed library A wealth of ideas to help attract patrons and keep the momentum going Profiles of existing libraries and other types of seed saving partnerships Whoever controls the seeds controls the food supply. By empowering communities to preserve and protect the genetic diversity of their harvest, Seed Libraries is the first step towards reclaiming our self-reliance while enhancing food security and ensuring that the future of food is healthy, vibrant, tasty, and nutritious. Cindy Conner is a permaculture educator, founder of Homeplace Earth and producer of two popular instructional gardening DVDs. She is also the author of Grow a Sustainable Diet .