It's seed catalog season, so I've got gardening on the brain. Victory Gardens are making a huge comeback, thanks to the economy, anxiety about the economy, the Slow Food movement, and worries about whether or not there's another Peanut Corporation of America lurking out there, ready to unleash another wave of salmonella-laced peanut butter upon the public. My mother helped me start my first garden at the age of three; when I was in college, living in a third-story apartment with no yard, my neighbor Tiffany and I figured out how to sneak onto the roof, where we started growing peas and lettuce (despite the fact that it's a pain to water plants on an apartment bloc roof, there are advantages to this method: rabbits can't fly).
Even if you plan on planting hostas this season, this 1940s educational film about Victory Gardens is a real charmer. I found it via the City Gardener blog; the folks there actually corresponded with Jane Gorsuch, the young girl in the film, who is now 83 years old. The filmmakers never screened it for her, so her first viewing of it was on their site. Enjoy. --Stefene Russell
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