You say "tomato"...I say?...Hey, I say "tomato," too!
"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I wanted to keep that word 'victory' because we are in a time of war,
[but] we should change what that word means so that victory should mean self-reliance and independence from corporate food systems."
- Amy Franceschini, leading Victory Garden proponent
That's a good thing.
For those of you new to the game, and if I'm following it correctly myself (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), the root of the discomfort lies in the word "victory" and its pugilistic connotations. Never mind that word means to bring closure to a conflict, not to launch a struggle. And, never mind that after several years of snarky Red State/Blue State divisiveness, if it's a "Victory Garden" movement that brings a sense of unity under the rhetoric of patriotism, then the term is a good one, dang it.
For what it's worth...and to be a bit playful today, am offering up my own POV on the word game. Here goes:
Two of the major alternatives to "victory" being proffered are "peace" and "freedom". Those are fine, I guess, although if the objective is to inspire a maximum number of people to take up home gardening anew (or for the first time), then we need to realize that a few folks on the right will find those terms...especially the first one...a tad, um, lefty and fringe. Sorry, sorry, sorry...I'll duck...whooosh!...while a few more (presumably organically grown heirloom) tomatoes come hurling in my direction. Plus, to me personally, "peace gardens" seem more floral in connotation than vegetable...in coming!....zzziiiiiinngggg....splat!
On a slightly more serious note, "freedom" might gain more traction than "peace", but for some of us on the left, there was the whole xenophobic "freedom fries" controversy. (I'd like to point out that much of the planet calls them "frites," when they aren't calling them "chips." But I digress...)
With regard to the garden name game, at least one article has tied the term "liberty gardens" to Thomas Jefferson, a prolific gardener...though how long until some soul points out that good ol' TJ, a slaveholder, wasn't exactly embracing "liberty" in its fullest sense? And who was tending his large garden, do you think? Having lived in a place where the word "plantation" is bandied about and slapped on just about anything imaginable (food products, restaurants, subdivisions, roads, etcetera)...even though it still irks over 30% of the area's inhabitants...well, some of us will inevitably shudder at those connections if they are too heavily drawn. Just sayin'.
Then again, given that "liberty garden" was a common phrase early in WWI (along with "war gardens"), it certainly holds appeal on those grounds, I guess. And yet there are a number of communities (over 1,000) who participated signed on to post-September 11 efforts by the Keep America Beautiful campaign to plant "liberty gardens," or patriotic-hued, not-necessarily-edible landscape plantings designed to memorialize all those lost in the tragedy.
Do we step on their toes by co-opting the name to push forward our own objectives?
And so we come back to the "Victory Garden" label...a simple, elegant phrase that adapts well to the situation at hand (a "victory" over global climate change...food insecurity...fuel scarcity...). Yes, there's the matter of gender and social inequity in the early to mid-twentieth century to be parsed, but seeing as the phrase "Victory Garden" is already part of our vernacular...and is a term that members of the Greatest Generation recognize and respond to, there's broader appeal, I think, than the other phrases. And, as long as there are a few of those Greatest Gen folks still around, we have a chance to make it clear to them that we admire their family's accomplishments--an added bonus. (Remember: at the end of the war, home gardens were producing 40% of American produce...an astounding figure. "Giving props" to Nana and Pops is merited.)
Ultimately, whatever name one chooses to tag one's own veg bed with is secondary to the action of planting a garden, of demonstrating self-reliance, and of promoting the benefits that attend "coming (back) out on to the front porch". So, we can parse and play with words for a bit, but, for the sake of sanity, let's try not to let the name game distract us to the point that we lose our focus...our intentions...and consequently see our efforts remain forever at the margins and never move fully to the productive center of America's public discourse.
For Further Exploration:
• Check out this article ("Cultivating a Jeffersonian-Style Liberty Garden," Columbia Tribune.com (Food Sleuth blog), 21 May 2008) on Missouri's new Thomas Jefferson Agricultural Institute, a non-profit funded in part with a $500,000 secured by U.S. Sen. Kit Bond so that our youth won't "forget how and where our food comes from. People should know what it takes to get food from farm to fork." Well said!
• If you missed the launch yesterday, please check out the marvelous and fresh-hatched Eat the View.org, where the name game is wisely skirted in favor of the phrase "edible landscapes." Hmmm.....
Tomorrow: A letter arrives in the mail...
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