Greenhouse Planning

Hello again after a much needed break. I took some time off of blogging and social media over the last quarter of 2022 and am feeling refreshed and ready to take on another year of History in the Kitchen.

I pulled out my 1943 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens New Garden Guide because I want to add a few more garden related posts this year. Victory Gardens were such an important part of home front life during the war. I know gardens are something women would have spent much time thinking about, planning, planting, and maintaining.

I really like the cover. Don’t you love her hat and that silver watering can?

I’ve had this gardening guide for a while and I forgot how wonderful it is! There are so many things I can’t wait to try or write about. It’s 200 pages of gardening goodness. Topics from where to place a garden fence to how to have a successful vegetable patch to a monthly garden guide. I’m so excited to dig in!

I also was thrilled to remember that tucked inside the guide in a section about growing mums, there is a stack of newspaper pages from the California Living Magazine section of the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle. The pages include the entire Jack Kramer article “Grow Your Own Greenhouse”. The date is October 6, 1974. Someone used this gardening guide from 1943 until at least 1974. Someone held on to their copy and referred back to it for at least thirty-one years. That amazes me! I wonder if they ever made that greenhouse?

Looking forward to sharing all sorts of wartime home front topics with you in the coming year.

Happy New Year!