Victory Gardens

Vegetable gardens, first proposed by the agriculturalist George Washington Carver, have long been a part of the American landscape, particularly during the First and Second World Wars when they were known as victory gardens. But these have taken on a new urgency amid the coronavirus as families shelter in place and worry about the possibility of food shortages.

With May and the softer seasons upon us, now is the perfect time to create a vegetable garden of your own

For a family of four, you’ll need an area about 1,000 square feet near a water source that gets plenty of sunlight. (Set aside an adjacent space for a compost box to feed your garden.) Place a 4-foot fence around your garden, ringed by aromatics, to deter pests, remembering to include an opening so you can access your plants.

Next you’ll need several boxes about 30 feet long by 4 feet wide by 1 and ½ feet deep. For these, you’ll want to use pressure-treated wood rather than untreated wood, otherwise your boxes will succumb to rot. Prior to 2003, chromated copper arsenate was used to treat wood and, as the name implies, it contained arsenic. Today’s pressure-treated wood, while mainly nontoxic, does contain copper or chromium, which can leach into the soil. Though the risk of toxicity is low, the Environmental Protection Agency recommends you safeguard against it by applying a protective oil to your boxes. Among the longest-lasting woods are redwood, black locust and cedar, which is also particularly attractive.

Now you’re ready to layer your boxes with gravel, black landscape lining, peat moss, topsoil and compost. As you plant your seeds, space them out and take note of which plants are in which boxes. You’ll want to make sure that you don’t plant the same plants in the same boxes next year as that depletes the soil. You’ll also want to alternate rows with aromatic herbs to distract pests from your tomatoes, zucchinis, beans, peppers, eggplants and cucumbers.

Don’t count on the plants to do all the work. Check and water them once a day.

Once your summer harvest is in, you can start on your winter root vegetables.

Yes, the vegetable gardener’s work is never done. But you’ll be rewarded with delicious, nutritious flavors and the knowledge that you’ve not only contributed to your family’s well-being at this time but the community’s as well as you help take the strain off the nation’s food supply.

Questions? We at the Morano Group are here to help.

May 2020

By Georgette Gouveia