1,000 Square Foot WWII Victory Garden Plan

For those who love authentic "Victory Garden" guides and plans, I'm excited to be sharing another one with you today!

This Victory Garden plan from 1942 is for a 1,000 square foot garden, with dimensions of 20' x 50'.

Just to put this in perspective, another Victory Garden guide from 1943 refers to a 30'x50' plot as a "Very Small Garden", so this would be considered very much on the small side for a Victory Garden.

Since government publications from the 40's are in the public domain, I'm going to go ahead and share all four panels of this small, single-fold bulletin with you. Aside from the garden map on page 2, it's full of tips and wonderful details.

What zone is suitable for this Victory Garden plan?

Published in Springfield, New Jersey, this particular guide never mentions hardiness zones, which isn't surprising since the idea of hardiness zones didn't get under way until the late 20's, and the USDA didn't publish it's first hardiness map until 1960.

It's easy to forget that some of these things we take for granted, like widespread accurate weather tracking, and the resultant reliable hardiness guides, haven't always been around!

That said, Springfield was probably the equivalent of our current hardiness zone 7a when this was published, and that can be helpful to keep in mind when considering the planting suggestions.

With a little careful planning in choosing fast-maturing varieties, it's possible to tweak this plan for use in any gardening zone in the US.

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Victory Gardens and Succession Planting

One major theme you'll see in all Victory Garden guides of the WWII era, is a big focus on getting the most food possible out of the garden space available.

Succession planting is a growing strategy where you plant an early crop, harvest it, then follow that with a late crop in the same space. This is possible any climate, but warmer growing zones, with their greater number of growing days, allow for a wider array of vegetables to be grown this way, than in colder climates.

To utilize succession planting in colder growing zones, you'll want to choose vegetable varieties that mature quickly. This article has a helpful list of tried-and-true varieties that can be grown in two months or less, making them good choices for succession planting.

I really appreciate the advice under point number 6, that's it's "better to remove the first crop and plant the second, rather than wait for the last small amount of produce from the first crop and sacrifice the abundant yield from the second."

That's solid advice, no matter what hardiness zone you're gardening in.

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Isn't this garden map just lovely? When I showed it to my mother, she commented on how beautiful the tiny lettering is. This was definitely before the era of 'handwriting fonts', and you can tell how much care must have been put into this.

One thing I've noticed about many of these old Victory Garden guides, is that lima beans and "kohl-rabi" seem to have been much more popular in that era, than they are today!

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I just love the detailed notes this guide offers about each different row. It's a bit more detailed than some of the other guides I've seen.

Again, as you're noticing the dates here, it's helpful to remember that this guide was published in what probably was the equivalent of zone 7a.

So for example, here in Maine I'm not putting Acorn Squash in the ground until after my first frost date, or probably a little later, certainly not by May 1 as the guide instructs. (Row 6)

Here in Maine, I also would be hard-pressed to manage a fully-grown spinach crop before May 20, freeing up the space to be replanted with lettuce. (Row 20) This succession of lettuce after spinach is still doable, it's just that the transition will need to happen a little later in the season if you're in a colder growing zone.

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Maintaining a "spic and span, weed-free garden" is some of the best gardening advice there is.

That watering advice is golden also. A good soak in the morning or the evening is so much more effective than superficial waterings throughout the day.

About those pesticide products.

Spra-Tox was a pyrethrin-based pesticide. You can actually see an old data product sheet for Spra-Tox here. I haven't been able to find similar data for Victory Garden Dust, but my understanding is that this was also a pyrethrin based product, in a dusting powder form.

For a modern product that's also pyrethrin-based, and suitable for organic gardening, PyGanic can be a good one to have in your arsenal.

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Don't you just love these old Victory Garden guides? This one was for a very small garden, by WWII standards. The next one will be a "medium sized garden", of 100'x150'. I'll look forward to sharing that one with you later this week!

Cheering you on from Maine,

Anna