Replicate the Victory Garden Meme NOW! Go! Go! Go!

Image source: National Archives

Okay, bloggin' peeps and readers! Am calling on you to start planting and promoting Victory Gardens like never before. 

Within the next week, I'm going to run some basic fall garden resource information, most of tailored to Central Texas & Zones 8&9.

Here's the fun part...if you are a blogger...I want you to think about riffing on this series at your blog and tailoring it to your zone/microclimate.

Why?

Each of us has a different approach to Victory Gardening and different ways of communicating. Heck, some of us even use different names for the "gardening for self-sufficiency" movement. The same is true of our readers. The more we chat and provide different POVs, the more we create interest in the basic concept. 

Besides, with most people, they have to "hear" something a couple of times--and from a couple of different sources presenting the material slightly differently--before it starts to stick.

Hence the objective of this exercise: to rev up existing Victory Gardening chat online a bit more, especially in the run up to the Slow Food Nation conference (when harvest time arrives in that marvelous San Francisco civic center garden) and the publication of Sharon Astyk's new books related to the topic. Then there's the inevitable interest to be generated by the EatTheView.org campaign. Would you believe well over 10,000 folks have seen the This Lawn is Your Lawn video? 

We can build greater interest and demand for Victory Gardening in our own communities if we work collaboratively. By replicating a Victory Garden/fall harvest meme, we can use or blogs to engage in some serious social entrepreneurism. 

Here's the definitions of them fi'ty cent words if your dictionary ain't handy:

Meme:

"A unit of cultural information that represents a basic idea that can be transferred from one individual to another, and subjected to MUTATION, CROSSOVER, and ADAPTATION."  Source

Social Entrepreneurship: 

"A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact s/he has on society." Source

By writing about vegetable gardening in a particular way--united around a particular set of principles (gardening for ourselves, our pocketbooks and the planet), we'll be fueling interest in our online and real world communities. (And, yes, if you call them something other than "Victory Gardens" you are free to participate! In fact, chatting about the choices we make with regard to names can help ignite more interest. Viva la difference!) 

Here are some prompts illustrating the kinds of things you could cover (you can just cut-and-paste and answer these questions together in one single post):

• What are your favorite local sources (ex. nurseries, blogs, reliable regional "celebrity" gardeners, county/parish extension office)?
• What are your favorite books and magazines?
• What have you had success with growing in your fall garden?
• When do you plant and harvest it?
• What is your favorite gardening tip?
• Why do you call your garden a _________ (Victory Garden, Peace Garden, Freedom Garden, vegetable garden...etc.)

Additionally...and this is entirely optional...if you sign on in the comments section below to participate AND indicate your garden zone, I will add your blog's name at a soon-to-be created page at Redwhiteandgrew.com, which should help pump up traffic and interest on all of our sites. (I'll include links to the other big Victory Garden site, Revive the Victory Garden ,too...I value her work!) By linking back to a central hub page, we will cross-pollinate ideas this way (like bees!) and create a network around the Victory Gardening topic. To extend the metaphor, we can amplify the rising hum! It'd be a fun experiment! (Update: To get your name up on the site, you must sign up here before September 1!)

 We are indeed all linked.

Not a blogger? Then just send email links to related blogs, sites and videos to friends, encouraging them to start gardening or just start thinking about it. Also, feel free to contact garden bloggers in your area to ask them to participate and share their expertise as part of this exercise. Much is made of engaging neophyte gardeners in Victory Gardening. Personally, I think connecting with and firing up experienced gardeners is as essential...if not more so. Experience (and the attending confidence) provides for better leaders!

Let's make Victory Gardening seriously viral, people. It's time. Are you game?

UPDATE: The Victory Garden Meme page is up at www.redwhiteandgrew.com/replicate. Please still use the Comments section of this post to sign on to the project.