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Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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book review: How to Grow Food, A Wartime Guide

February 2, 2025

Hey friends! I’d like to share with you my thoughts on the shortest, sweetest, and actually most inspiring little gardening book ever. My long distance bibliophile friend Brittany sent it to me toward the end of Pandemic; but sadly it, it being so diminuitive and me being so aahhhhh, it got lost in the choas of the Apartment. I unearthed it last week while doing a deep clean and was drawn in all over again by the cover art and title: How to Grow Food, A Wartime Guide.

((find this on Ebay!))

Originally published in 1940, it was reprised 2012 and I have read it at exactly the right time for my soul, as these things tend to happen. Are we at war this minute? Maybe not explicitly. But spiritually and socially, kind of. And as far as supply chains and economies are concerned, sure. So let’s grow food and lots of it and have a great time while doing so.

Okay. 1940, Great Britain. The book is written in a narration style, with a calm, tongue in cheek cadence and light touch of humor, despite frequent mentions of Hitler, food rations, refugees, and guesses about how long “this new war” will last. The narrator kind of oversees the fledgling growing adventures of Mr. and Mrs. B, who are British city dwellers recently transplanted to the countryside, in the wake of the first World War. Mr. and Mrs. B. are visited and haphazardly mentored by the only other character in the book, the “Weatherbeaten Lady,” who is eventually identitfied simply as W.L. She is the local countrywoman who knows everything worth knowing about gardening, and she is the opposite of shy about imparting her knowledge to her new and very inexperienced countryside neighbors.

The book is barely 80 pages long, so it’s a quick and delicious little read. Practically a weekday blog post in my world, ha! And each section is as fun as it is useful. Only a few bits of advice seem to not have stood the test of time. One example is the use of cyanide to elminate wasp nests. I’m not even kidding. And the old practice of “double digging” a new seed bed, while not completely out of fashion, is now hotly contested by the no-dig approach made popular by Ruth Stout and Charles Dowding. Eveything else, in my humble opion, can be accepted as at least an old practice worth trying. It’s a sweet and casual collection of old wives’ tales, good habits, and rules of green thumb. Overall, I really liked the October-to-September conversation about how best to grapple with the seasonal rhythms. I have long thought that gardening literature gets super granular way before it first offers a digestible overview of how to just look at your garden. How to strategize. How to see what is possible in your space and how to maximize your unique opportunities. This tiny little book provides some thought stimulus that most gardening books lack.

Here are some short passages I found especially sweet:

“This little book is not intended to teach the farmer or market-gardener his business. It is for those who have never grown food before, either because they have had no gardens, or because, being possessed of gardens, they have grown nothing but flowers.” This is followed by a long passage about the call to become a more “useful” gardener, ha!

“Now that the country is at war… poverty is not the point. Nourishment is the point. Whether one has money or not, it is possible that on some days of the week one will not be able to buy enough food to fill the inner man. But with a garden of vegetables, one will be able to get over the difficulties of distribution that seem to afflict the Government’s well-laid plans for feeding the multitudes.”

(In a paragrah about combating the stress of being stuck at home during a war, which absolutely reminded me of most people’s Pandemic experience…) “…to counteract states of mind, from whatever cause, there is nothing like gardening. It matters not whether the object of one’s labours is a parsnip or a penstemon, the work’s the thing.”

“…to work in the open air, at tasks which really need attention, is to diffuse thought and lull it, and at the same time to gain in physical well-being. It is impossible to be consistently unhappy while digging, planting, or weeding.”

Regarding the W.L.’s advice to Mrs. B. against well manicured and polished hands: “I never set up to be an authority on how to keep the hands lovely while holding down the job of gardener-of-all-work. I am content to keep clean. That’s easy enough. Earth isn’t dirty like oil or grease. Soap and water and a stiff nail-brush are all you need.”

Regarding the arrogant and untried Mr. B: “He studies how to dig. Not any fool can dig.”

And then the same man, after digging a while: “Why, in the first place, does one dig?” I found this turn of thought unreasonably funny.

After some rationalizing and slow learning, once the bones of their new garden have taken shape but they have admitted to not wanting flowers because flowers are not food, an epiphany: “Pretty? Mr. and Mrs. B, in a fervour of utilitarianism, had forgotten that the first duty of a garden is to feed the soul.”

Mr. B. is really falling in love with the practice now: “He thought of the grand rhythm of digging: strike, shove, heave, strike, shove, heave. He thought of the chocolate earth, that was so satisfyingly dirty in such an essentially clean way. He made plans for after the war.” Isn’t that relatable? The sense of being vaulted to a better future while tending the earth?

The narrator pauses to address the choice to begin this gardening story in October: “It may seem that I have begun my account of a gardener’s year at the wrong end: but I think not. The preparation is the real beginning of a garden: not the sowing.”

And a bit more about winter work: “There is little more they can do at the moment, so they busy themselves in collecting information and making additions to their calendar. They wish they had begun gardening last year.”

Much of the middle of the book is packed with specific and practical advice about actual planting practices, certain vegetables and what they like best, greenhouse tips, and more. There’s even a chapter about keeping livestock for the sake of the garden and food supply. I love the parts about farm compost. Here’s one about potting soil: “The best people put their potting-soil through a garden-sieve; I work it and crumble it with my hands, merely because I like it.”

“March- Now we get busy.”

“But the thing which most exercises us in April is weeding.”

“June- Keep hoeing. Keep hoeing all summer.” Hoeing ain’t easy, friends. You know this.

A thought provoking insight about strategy, especially if your growing space is limited: “If the choice lies between small fruit and vegetables, and if the country is at war, the vegetables have it. Small fruit, however delicious, is not an essential of good diet.”

((Radishes. Grow radishes, you guys. They are fast, delicious, and good for aerating your other crops (like lettuce) if you sprinkle the seeds among them.))

I want to be friends with W.L. and wonder if one day I will actually be her: “The W.L. smiles tolerantly, and the B.s feel that she is so full of superior knowledge that she could probably tell by scent where each crop had been. “ This was from a whole chapter about garden arrangement and crop rotation.

The early lesson about feeding the soul needed a few tries to really stick. In answer to W.L.’s offer of shared flowers, Mrs. B. says, ” ‘Oh I don’t think so- it’s very kind of you, but you see, we’re going to grow food.’ Patriotism and virtue exuded from her.”

Okay friends, I hope I have tempted you to find this sweet little thing and gobble it up. Do it after your circle everything you want in the seed catalogs but before you go outside and start digging. Read it knowing that Victory Gardens were exactly what made the difference for thousand and thousands (millions?) of people during WWII, and although our exact circumstances are thankfully very different now, some themes are repeating. A new kind of Victory Garden is called for. Do it. Dive on in with us. Grow some food and some flowers and find yourself your own Weatherbeaten Lady to mentor you, if you are not yet one yourself.

I barely wear sunscreen or polish my nails, so I can try to help if you want.

Happy Growing!!
XOXOXO

4 Comments
Filed Under: book reviewsTagged: bookish, books, gardening, grow something green, grow your own, pandemic, victory gardens

a new spin on victory gardens

February 9, 2023

Our grandparents and great grandparents had wartime versions of Victory Gardens that served them well and helped their families thrive in uncertain times. The government endorsed these efforts and more before industrialized farming took over.

Lately we are hearing more and more about “Victory Gardens,” and I expect that will only gain momentum. For a variety of good reasons, everyone seems to be rediscovering the appeal of growing food and maybe tip-toeing into sustainability.

I love this!

But…

I also see the idea ballooning in such a way that people are becoming discouraged almost as soon as they feel inspired. Lots of people are also beginning their adventure from a place of absolute terror.

In an environment of fear over rising food prices and broken supply chains, it’s easy to let something as natural and beautiful as home gardening fall into the category of obligation, panic, and unrealistic standards for success.

Let’s fix that.

Right here, today, with just a mindset shift, let’s reset. Before we write a single letter to a single lawmaker or even before we spend one dollar on grow lights or join any online forums trying to learn it all in one day, let’s rethink what a Victory Garden could possibly be, for you.

OSU OKC teaching garden

Victory could look like adding beauty, fragrance, creativity, and dimension to your life. Victory could be saving money by growing fancy herbs and better ingredients, just a little bit here and there. Victory might include just occasionally stepping aside from the bizarre supply chains we have created for ourselves or cultivating small, meaningful skills that build and compound on themselves every year. No need to be perfectly successful on your first try. Everyone fails. A lot.

squash bugs
((hell hath no fury like a gardener overrun with these monsters))

Maybe victory for you would be making memories with your children and helping them see the natural world as a source of beauty and pleasure, and then one day helping them install their own gardens. Victory could be growing chemical free food more often, while at the same time rejecting stress and guilt over still buying average stuff from the store. It’s fine! Mix it up! You garden can be a supplement way before it is a substitute.

Victory is certainly discovering new ways to enhance your outdoor space, discovering a new hobby that keeps your body lifting and stretching and breathing fresh air, keeping your eyes off of electronics for a slice of each day. Victory is blanketing the earth with more trees, flowers, mulch, and foods. Victory is attracting and feeding all kinds of pollinators and wildlife. A very beautiful Victory Garden is one that encourages diversity.

Victory might be witnessing and immersing ourselves in the intricate, powerful, unstoppable Cycle of Life, participating in the seasons instead of complaining about them, being swept up in the life affirming wealth of daylight and the nitrogen rich snow and rainfall. Victory is learning to use kitchen scraps to feed your garden rather than overstuff the landfill. Victory is being part of the solution, in your own way, in your own time, with joy and freedom and confidence, rejecting fear.

I believe that working with fear, shame, or panic will not only kill your spirit but also at least stall your garden, maybe sabotage it completely. Your mindset matters. So get that sweet and level first. Rethink what a Victory Garden could be in your life, with your circumstances, needs, and cravings. What problems are you trying to solve? Where do your passions fall, naturally? There is a garden for you out there.

fresh homegrown watermelon oklahoma
((If 2013 was the Summer of Basil, then 2014 was the Summer of Watermelon…xoxo))

Please consider growing something that makes you authentically happy. I want you, if you haven’t already, to discover for what “Victory” means for you and how to use gardening to pursue that in uniquely pleasing ways.

((20 sunflowers for Jessica’s 20th birthday… she came home the next year))

There are hundreds of ways to be a Victory Gardener.

Far be it from me to discourage anyone from attempting a true, traditional, full-fledged Victory Garden that increases your family’s groceries and stocks your pantry for winter, the kind your great-grandmother probably mastered. That is certainly within reach if you have the space and the time to devote to it. And what a noble goal! But also, I believe these other, very different gardening goals are every bit as noble.

Bonus points, always, for not using chemicals on your garden. Double bonus points for using natural fertilizers and compost. Triple bonus points for sharing your bounty and staying true to yourself as you go.

Almost done with these thoughts.

My Grandpa gave me lots of gardening advice, and it was all good. But one thing bears repeating here:

“The best fertilizer is the gardener’s shadow.” Spend time in your growing spaces, however large or small or weird or formal they are. Just be present, frequently. Watch, enjoy, pay attention, apply your considerable knowledge and creative energy there. It needs you as much as you need it. It will reward you by growing you right alongside it.

Let’s release that weirdo pressure to be the same kind of gardener as anyone else, friends. Let’s drop the fear and panic and just grow something. Anything. Nature will support us.

Life began in a Garden,
and Victory is our birthright
XOXOX
O

2 Comments
Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: choose joy, gardening, hobby fam, inspiration, love, miracles, tradition, victory gardens

Hi! I'm Marie. Welcome to the Lazy W. xoxo

Hi! I’m Marie. This is the Lazy W.

A hobby farming, book reading, coffee drinking, romance having, miles running girl in Oklahoma. Soaking up the particular beauty of every day. Blogging on the side. Welcome to the Lazy W!

I Believe Strongly in the Power of Gratitude & Joy Seeking

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