Personal Victory Gardens and 10 Reasons to Grow Your Own Food
Personal Victory Gardens are a philosophy of mine that can extend to anyone wishing to grow their own food.
It’s about feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally well as much as it’s giving a middle finger to America’s sick and dying food system. Breaking away from Big Food, creating your own food source allows you to dig into the dirt and let your fried senses—all five—soak in what only the Earth can provide.
It’s a victory that becomes very, very personal once you understand what we’re up against.
Personal Victory Gardens are a Food Rebellion
While the Victory Gardens of the WWI and WWII era were a patriotic and civic duty, the Victory Gardens I like to build are a little more rebellious. Here’s a quick history lesson for context:
During the World Wars, the United States was among the proponents of Victory Gardens, advocating for everyday citizens to take up hoe and trowel to plant fruit and vegetable gardens in just about any green space they could find—private residences, public parks, railroad edges, etc.
The thought was twofold: First, growing produce in home gardens would supplement wartime rations and lower the overall price of vegetables, allowing the government to feed its troops more and better. Second, rallying around a common goal, it unified and boosted the morale of citizens who wanted to make a difference.
Spurred on by governmental propaganda, they took root. In 1943, there were an estimated 18 million Victory Gardens in the US, accounting for one-third of all vegetables produced. A year later, that number hit 20 million, responsible for eight million tons of produce (about half of overall US production).
After the war, as early as 1946, the movement withered. Jumping ahead 75 years, to feed a nation, we’ve now come to rely on factory farming and processed food conglomerates lest we disturb our 9-to-5 schedules and perfectly manicured, chemically green lawns.
It’s backward thinking, especially as one in four American households currently face food insecurity.
That’s the point of Personal Victory Gardens. They make you more resilient against a system that is damn well happy to continue feeding you poorly. Being a “rebel,” in this regard, is really just stepping up to say you care about your physical and mental well-being.
Unfortunately, most interested parties in the US food realm would prefer you didn’t (find out why below the photos…).
10 Reasons to Plant a Personal Victory Garden
When you make a lot of assertions, people will inherently try to poke holes in your argument. You won’t get far in today’s social climate without understanding that.
Luckily, I’m a huge reader and capable researcher—I’m not just cherry-picking obscure material from Google that props me up. Still, as you’ll undoubtedly raise an eyebrow at some of the big, seemingly hyperbolic takes I drop below, I will provide a reputable source where you can do your own reading.
Feeding us poison for profit has bi-partisan support.
Sugar and ultra-processed foods make up the majority of diets for many Americans. Unfortunately, the government won’t come out and say that because politicians, USDA scientists, and various “experts” are bought and sold like cold cuts at the deli counter. Essentially, lobbyists control what we eat by funding misleading studies, applying pressure for strategic congressional votes, and completely influencing what goes into the Dietary Guidelines for Americans report.
Companies like Coca-Cola, Tyson Foods, Kellogg, and Mondelēz spend millions every year to have the final say in what ends up on the food pyramid. And who could forget the role of the sugar industry, who shifted the blame of overweight and unhealthy Americans to saturated fat with one well-placed, fraudulent study?
Republican, democrat, independent—it doesn’t matter. Policy makers and scientists line their pockets while Americans eat themselves to death.
The richest part is that this type of corruption is legal. It’s just morally despicable.
Our arable land is shrinking.
You may have heard the statement that we only have “60 harvests left,” a claim reiterated as recent as 2019. It’s because of climate change and also our destructive mass-production farming methods that deplete the soil of nutrients.
While some experts dispute the actual number, it is a fact that our soil is eroding faster than the Earth can regenerate it. Moreover, because of rising temperatures and disruptive severe weather patterns, staple crops that have been grown in regions for millennia are failing.
That’s why some rural, mountainous, butter-dominated regions of Italy are experiencing olive oil production for the first time. Trekking north, avocados, almonds, and many more popular foods will need farmable land at higher altitudes or burn out entirely… if the soil doesn’t give out first.
Our store-bought veggies aren’t as nutritious as our grandparents’ were.
Going hand-in-hand with soil depletion, the lack of minerals and nutrients in the soil means there’s less to transfer on to the vegetables that grow in it.
This is compounded by two other tough realities: First, fruits and vegetables naturally start shedding nutrients within 24 hours of being picked through a process called respiration. Broccoli, for instance, is said to lose up to 70% of its vitamin C and 50% of antioxidants in just six days after being whacked.
Second, because our food typically travels long distances and is often eaten out of season, farmers pick fruits and veggies before they’re ripe to prevent spoilage. Unfortunately, if colorful veg is picked green, you’ll miss all the nutrients that would have naturally developed while on the vine.
Our food is killing us because of processing.
Ultra-processed foods lead to premature death and increased all-cause mortality. What are ultra-processed foods? Oh, just between 67–80% of the typical American diet; that’s all.
Snack bars, potato chips, soda, breakfast cereal, Slim Jims, pastries, white bread, fried foods, french fries—as the ingredient list grows, your life span shrinks.
We kill bugs and weeds with cancer-causing poison.
More than 90% of Americans have pesticides or their byproducts in their bodies. Remember Roundup, aka glyphosate, the carcinogen? It’s the second-most widely used herbicide in the US in both agricultural settings and at home.
It kills weeds, which allows large farms to improve yields. In fact, it would kill the farmers’ seeds too if they weren’t genetically modified. And this doesn’t even count the delicious crop dusting of pesticides—that’s a separate poison layer that runs off into our water supplies as well.
Most importantly, these chemicals cause antibiotic resistance, irregular hormone imbalances, and fatal cancers in humans. They’re on our food. We eat poison.
Our food traditions suck.
As a nation, we envy cultural food. Being a relatively young country, the United States has borrowed many traditions from its far-flung inhabitants. And yet, we’re quick to cut corners and pigeonhole entire cuisines into a set list of easy-to-produce dishes (pad Thai is not the only dish served in Thailand). There’s also the whole New American genre, which is just a $16 “bistro burger.”
Elsewhere around the globe, food preparation is life—delicious, nutritious food as the great unifier of the family. Whole ingredients, no bullshit, made right.
Our food prices won’t go down.
While inflation for many products is predicted to be transitory, Kraft Heinz’s CEO sees the reality of the situation: food prices will remain high because the world’s population is rising while our farming yields are going the opposite direction.
And we’ll all suffer for it—beyond just the register. The wars of the future will be fought over food and water, not oil.
Our kids are weak, stupid, and sick.
It’s a tough thing for parents to swallow.
In the US, one in three children is overweight or obese. Malnutrition and nutritional deficiency, prevalent among American adolescents, have been linked to problems with cognition and emotional disorders. And the jury’s out on what’s causing the exponential hike in food allergies, but I’d have to assume it could have something to do with the poison or the processing.
We’re stress-out house cats.
Americans spend more time looking at screens than they do sleeping. To avoid criticism, I am, in fact, typing this on a laptop computer. But this is about health trends. Over half of the population is completely fatigued and burnt out, and the EPA estimates that today’s American spends 93% of their entire life indoors.
Meanwhile, people who spend more time outdoors are healthier and happier, according to science. Gardening is no exception.
In our always-on pace of life—screens scrolling, phone dinging, schedule packed—it can seem like there’s no time for anything. In a garden, things slow down—just long enough for you to appreciate what an absolute treasure both the experience and the yield of gardening is.
The government doesn’t want you to, but you should.
A complete reversal of their original purpose, the US government and a host of food conglomerates would prefer you keep your fingernails clean. They benefit from your complacency.
But growing a Personal Victory Garden solves for all of these heinous-but-true realities of our broken food system. Fruits and veggies are just one ingredient, free of poison (if you so choose), and no, it’s not your imagination—produce grown like you give a damn tastes better.
So, enjoy it, because victory is sweet.
