Victory Gardens for a new era

Under the gaze of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture whose statue graces the top of the golden dome of the Statehouse in Montpelier, a group of students on Thursday began planting what's believed to be the first vegetable garden at a state capitol in the nation.

Part of the idea came out of necessity, as the budget for maintaining flower beds outside the Statehouse got cut by 20 percent. Instead, two long, narrow plots of organic vegetables were planted on either side of the steps leading to the front door.

The Montpelier students planted lettuce seedings, while a volunteer group called the APPLE (Association for the Planting of Edible Public Landscapes for Everyone) Corps planted chives, parsley, red cabbage, early bush peas, carrots, scallions and other veggies. The harvest will be donated to the Montpelier Food Pantry.

APPLE Corps member Caroline Abels told The Associated Press that the Statehouse vegetable garden "is meant to give folks an extra boost of inspiration -- and some basic information -- to get them started on growing their own gardens at home."

Not that Vermonters need much encouragement to garden. The "feed and seed" and the garden supply stores are mobbed on the weekends at this time of year. Demand for community garden space is growing. Area schools have started growing food for their cafeterias and incorporating the lessons learned in the garden into the curriculum. Gardeners
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are planting extra rows of vegetables for food banks. And the word "localvore" is well established in the lexicon as more people strive to eat food grown and produced closer to home.

And this is not exactly a new idea. While the vegetable garden that's been planted at the White House by First Lady Michelle Obama got plenty of attention, people with longer memories recalled when Eleanor Roosevelt planted her Victory Garden during World War II.

During the war, the government rationed many foods, while fuel and labor shortages made it difficult for farmers to harvest and deliver fruits and vegetables to market. The answer was the Victory Garden. Americans were urged to produce their own fruits and vegetables. Nearly 20 million Americans answered the call. By the end of the war, the gardens planted in back yards and empty lots were producing 40 percent of the nation's produce.

These gardens produced more than just food. They provided a tangible way for Americans in cites and suburbs to contribute to the war effort. But when the fighting ended, so too did the government's call for people to produce their own food. By the spring of 1946, the Victory Garden had already faded into history. American agriculture quickly changed from small farm operations to large corporate farms, and with it came mechanization, petrochemicals and crop standardization.

Our nation is not now in a war of national survival. Instead of dictators, our new enemy is climate change and how it might affect our "modern" system of agriculture. Farming is second only to transportation as the biggest users of fossil fuel in the American economy. Most of our food travels an average of 1,500 miles before it lands on our plate, and it is estimated that every calorie of food takes the equivalent of 10 calories of energy to produce and transport.

"If we want to make significant progress in reducing global warming we will need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary solar energy," wrote author and food advocate Michael Pollan recently. "Resolarizing the food economy can support diversified farming and shorten the distance from farm to fork, shrinking the amount of fossil fuel in the American diet. A decentralized food system offers many other significant benefits: Food eaten closer to where it is grown is fresher and requires less processing, making it more nutritious, and whatever may be lost in efficiency by localizing food production is gained in resilience; regional food systems can better withstand all kinds of shocks."

The gardens at the Statehouse in Montpelier and the White House in Washington are symbols of a new awareness that it's time for a new generation of Victory Gardens. And, as a bonus, you end up with fresher, tastier and more nutritious food.