When this post first appeared in April of this year, the garden you see above was a weedy, nasty urban lot. Within six weeks hundreds of neighbors, volunteers and friends had transformed it into the largest community edible garden in Chicago. The post below talks about the amazing achievements of Chicagoans in 1943. The Peterson [...]

One of our volunteers found a newspaper article from May 21, 1942 that talked about the original garden dedication. It didn’t reveal too many mysteries other than that a flag was raised, a prayer said and that the Senn High School band played.
But it provided plenty of inspiration!
In the spirit of my WW2 Block Captain [...]

I’m very excited! Wednesday at 7pm I’m doing my “Chicago Victory Gardens: Yesterday and Tomorrow” lecture for the Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society.
When I started lecturing on WW2 Chicago Victory Gardens this spring the “tomorrow” part was a general overview of how to start a community garden a la’ Victory Garden today as they [...]

My mother likes to say “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I have been intending, every day, to update you on the progress of our retro Victory Garden The Peterson Garden Project. However between my day job and early mornings/late nights at the garden the last few weeks are a blur.
Luckily this [...]

The Peterson Garden Project (and my self appointed Block Captain duties) have made me think really hard about how to get all the stuff I know about edible gardening out of my head and “down on paper” for the many novice gardeners growing with us this season.

I’ve tried to write this blog post for a week and there’s no real easy way to say why or how The Peterson Garden Project came together other than love. Love of history, love of gardening and love of community. And maybe a potentially lethal dose of curiosity…
Last winter I was traveling a lot for [...]

The year – 1943 – was a banner growing season for Chicago Victory Gardens. As the war was in its second year, Chicagoans rallied community-by-community to do all they could for the effort and to alleviate the shortages caused by the largest international conflict of all time.
As transportation resources were diverted to moving troops and [...]

Researching, writing and talking about the “lost list” got me wondering about what those vegetables grown almost 70 years ago might have tasted like and how they might be different (better? worse? same?) than the varieties we grow today.

We had a blast today at the Chicago Dank-Haus! About 80 participants joined us for “Chicago Victory Gardens: Yesterday and Tomorrow”.
We had said it would be part-performance, part-lecture and it turned out to be just that. In Part 1 (Yesterday) six talented actors from Chicago portrayed people originally involved in the WW2 Victory Garden movement [...]

“Growing vegetables does not preclude growing of flowers and the continued maintenance of ornamental plantings about your home.
Flowers have their spiritual value and will help the morale of your family, your neighbors and yourself. Add a border of planting of flowers to your Victory Garden and plant several rows of them.
They will appreciably [...]