# What was the point of victory gardens? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 11, 2026, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813 "2026-06-11T02:35:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/61 "2026-06-12T11:28:34Z")
My grandfather passed away in 1971 at the age of 71. He was basically too young to serve in WW I and too old for WW II. He and his brother owned a small farm outside New Haven, CT, where they cultivated a decent-sized vegetable garden, but they were primarily in the construction (carpentry, masonry) business as a two-person firm. I have some stories about victory gardens from him, as well as from my late mother. As stated earlier in this thread, the victory garden program had quite a bit of government support and supervision. There were classes on growing gardens and canning fruit/vegetables, for example. My grandfather expanded the areas he had under cultivation by about fourfold and, in return, he received extra ration coupons for gas for his equipment, as well as other considerations. Parts of the garden areas were assigned to people participating in the program, sort of like British allotments. He would do basic harrowing with his old Ford tractor and provide some other support for everyone. He had a pretty low opinion of the gardening skills of most of the people, but they did not give him any sort of trouble. In fact, much of what he raised in his portion was bartered to the others for things like…gas and meat ration coupons. One reason I got a lot of stories about this time was that my father once let slip that my mother and the family took a couple long trips to Florida during the war using bartered gas ration coupons and farm equipment gas. My father served in FL in the Navy in WW II and they would drive down to visit him. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/62 "2026-06-12T11:36:31Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > As an aside: do people not grow fruit trees in their yards in the U.S. Some people do. Pretty common in some areas, not in others. Fruit trees take years to produce, and some people move a lot; others don’t want to take care of the trees, or have little space and want sun on it, or don’t think they’ll have time to deal with the harvest and don’t want dropped fruit rotting on their lawn. And in some neighborhoods there really isn’t space, while in others the only acceptable style is mowed lawn, maybe with a couple of flowerbeds. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/63 "2026-06-12T11:50:21Z")
My grandparents garden had/has two apple trees. My late mother used to use some of the apples for cooking, in the season. She always grumbled about the poor quality of the windfalls, all wormy (because they weren’t sprayed in the autumn). My uncle (now dead) never bothered doing anything with them. The East Europeans next door asked last year whether they could gather them. I said yes. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/64 "2026-06-12T13:09:06Z")
Some people do - I live in NYC and there are certain neighborhoods where it seems like every other house is growing figs or grapes or both. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/65 "2026-06-12T13:22:04Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > True. But you don’t need all that much space to massively improve your diet with micronutrients and flavor. And it’s astonishing what can be grown in a fairly small space with the right techniques. You don’t need room to turn a tractor around, after all, or even a rototiller. Believe me, I know! My wife and are a whatever a step up from backyard gardener is, in that we’ve got a home garden and a plot at a nearby church that we dedicate wholly to their food bank. We (she mostly) gets _hundreds_ of lbs of produce annually out of that plot for the food bank. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/66 "2026-06-12T13:29:12Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > As an aside: do people not grow fruit trees in their yards in the U.S. and UK? They’re very common here - my parents, for instance, had lemons, olives and pomegranates; the lemon trees especially produced a ungodly amount of fruit, which they would happily give bags of to whoever came by. If they were ever forced to start a victory garden, the trees would have served as a pretty solid basis. It’s quite common in the U.S. and U.K. to have fruit trees, although citrus, olives and pomegranates aren’t practical for much of the country unless you grow them in tubs to come indoors over the winter. And many HOAs in suburbia probably have rules against fruit trees. Messy, you know. 🙄 We have several kinds of fruit trees - cherry, plums, Asian pears and mulberries (producing heavily now) among them. Figs will ripen later. Without them, Victory over Iran would not be possible. 🤪 ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/67 "2026-06-12T13:31:43Z")
The traditional Victory Garden wasn’t a particularly productive garden design. The government literature from the time depicts standard ‘row’ gardens with large spacing between the rows. Modern intensive planting or Square-foot garden designs produce multiple times more harvest per square foot than Victory Gardens did. However, the sheer numbers of households participating in the wartime effort made producing 40% of all domestic vegetable possible at that time. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/68 "2026-06-12T13:56:26Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > We have several kinds of fruit trees - cherry, plums, Asian pears and mulberries (producing heavily now) among them. We have a cherry tree in our backyard. I’m always impressed by the cherries’ ability to go from unripe and inedible to overripe and moldy in the span of a single day! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/69 "2026-06-12T15:06:09Z")
I wouldn’t classify a mulberry as a “fruit tree”. It’s a lot of effort for a little fruit, and it’s not even very good fruit: Mulberries don’t really have any flavor beyond just sweet. And they’re also a huge mess (especially if you have the bad fortune to have one right over your driveway). ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/70 "2026-06-12T15:44:19Z")
Fresh-picked mulberries, especially from named varieties, are excellent. Some have a tart-sweet flavor profile. Others have white or green fruit, preserving one’s driveway from horrid stains, should one choose to have a mulberry overhanging the driveway [https://leereich.com/2013/06/mulberries-and-winner-is.html](https://leereich.com/2013/06/mulberries-and-winner-is.html) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/71 "2026-06-12T16:47:33Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > But it’s not as if everyone was in harmony with the idea of noble self-sacrifice in those days. > > During WWII in the U.S. there was well-publicized corruption, labor strife, racial tensions spilling over and monumental bitching about shortages and other dissatisfactions with civilian life. Things got done regardless. Sure. People are gonna people. You don’t even mention the black market, hording of goods, and right-wingers trying to sabotage Roosevelt. But you’re looking at it the wrong way. If this stuff happened in the midst of omnipresent encouragement to work together, imagine what the result would be like _without_ that constant governmental and social pressure. Keeping the bad stuff to a minimum was a absolute must that the U.S. successfully negotiated. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/72 "2026-06-12T17:13:22Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I guess what I was wondering is why people needed to be encouraged to start gardens. How would most HOAs respond if one turned the whole front lawn into a vegetable garden? A government campaign is needed to turn public opinion and make it a patriotic duty instead of “something poor and rural people do.” ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/73 "2026-06-12T17:29:26Z")
Growing any vegetables in one’s front yard, much less turning the front yard into a vegetable patch, would violate the squeaky clean uniformity enforced by HOAs. I don’t see much government role currently for promoting home veg and fruit growing. Local ordinances protecting people who want to establish a bit of semi-wild habitat as an alternative to lawn seems like a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/74 "2026-06-12T17:36:55Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > > > I guess what I was wondering is why people needed to be encouraged to start gardens. > > How would most HOAs respond if one turned the whole front lawn into a vegetable garden? A government campaign is needed to turn public opinion and make it a patriotic duty instead of “something poor and rural people do.” I doubt there were many HOAs in the 1940s and in any case, I would _assume_ the national emergency overrode any such rules. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/75 "2026-06-12T17:39:34Z")
Dude, it was so much worse. They had rules about the people who could live in your house. One of my Grandmothers had to put a clothesline in her basement because she couldn’t hang her undies in her own back yard. Snobs were not invented in the year 2000. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/76 "2026-06-12T17:46:45Z")
What year was this and was this a municipal rule or an actual HOA? And given the wartime housing shortages, that rule _might_ have been about whether they could house someone unrelated in your house. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/77 "2026-06-12T17:49:26Z")
It was about the color of people’s skin and who was allowed to live in the neighborhood. Read your history. There was a lot of shameful stuff going on back then. Look up neighborhood covenants and neighborhood leagues. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/78 "2026-06-12T19:32:00Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > Grandpa belonged to a ‘pig club’, they all helped, raising the pig- when the pig was slaughtered it counted as part of your meat ration. Michael Palin made a movie _A Private Function_ about a group of village elite raising an illegal pig off the books, to avoid it being caught up in rationing allocations; it was intended for the feast for the village bigwigs to celebrate the royal wedding. Since that was 1947, the rationing persisted after the war. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/79 "2026-06-12T19:45:03Z")
It lasted until 1954. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2026, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813/80 "2026-06-12T19:54:39Z")
Immediately after the war, the rations shrunk to even lower levels, and bread was rationed for the first time. Meat rationing was the last to go. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-victory-gardens/1030813.md?page=5)