A look at Victory Gardens in World War II

With spring upon us, the attention turns to gardening and new beginnings.

April is National Garden Month, a time to celebrate the joys of gardening and the many benefits it provides. For this month, we examine Victory Gardens on the World War II home front.

In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day - June 6, 1944 - we will feature a story related to the largest amphibious invasion in military history. These stories will be shared on the sixth of every month leading to June 6, 2024.

Faced with having to feed an expanded military and a hungry population, the U.S. government reintroduced the idea of War Gardens from World War I. They rebranded them as Victory Gardens for World War II.

The Garden for Victory: Guide for Planning the Local Victory Garden Program from 1942 cites the garden’s purpose would be to increase the “production and consumption of fresh vegetables and fruits by more and better home, school, and community gardens, to the end that we become a stronger and healthier nation; to encourage the proper storage and preservation of the surplus from such gardens for distribution and use by families producing it, local school lunches, welfare agencies, and for local emergency food needs; to enable families and institutions to save on the cost of vegetables and apply this saving to other necessary foods which must be purchased; to provide through the medium of community gardens, an opportunity for gardening by urban dwellers and others who lack suitable home garden facilities; and to maintain and improve the morale and spiritual well-being of the individual, family, and nation.”

World War II Victory Gardens were grown anywhere they could be: on farms, in backyards, on city rooftops, in window-boxes, on public lands, and in vacant lots.

A National Park Service article states that by the time the war was over in1945, American Victory Gardeners had grown between 8 and 10 million tons of food.

Locally, a presentation “Arsenal of Democracy – Victory Gardens” at The War Memorial is set for May 30 at 6:30 p.m. That evening, Grosse Pointe Garden Center Board Member Alaine Bush will present on Victory Gardens. The presentation comes as part of The War Memorial’s Arsenal of Democracy exhibit, celebrating the 80th Anniversary of D-Day.

In March, we highlighted the role that woman played during the war. Check back in May for another D-Day related story as we prepare to commemorate the anniversary with a program at The War Memorial on Thursday, June 6.

The War Memorial is home to a direct connection with the beaches of Normandy through our very own sculpture, Les Braves II: At Water’s Edge. The original Les Braves sculpture is located on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, and was sculpted by Anilore Banon to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the operation that paved the way for the liberation of France during WWII. Visit our Les Braves II page to learn more about the sculpture and how you can support The War Memorial.