WWII Memorial Garden a Victory for Cross-Curricular Integration, STEM learning, Physical Education, Nature Education, and Health Education!

National D-Day Memorial Victory Garden Project Produces Much More than Vegetables

“Wow, are we lucky today!” chirped a little girl embracing a bulging bag of green beans.  Her companion had just husked an ear of corn, and the pair beamed as they bounced through the gate of W. E. Stevens Family Victory Garden at the National D-Day Memorial.  A few weeks earlier, they and their fellow gardeners had filled a wheelbarrow with tender, new ears.  After that, they picked bags of zucchini, squash, green peppers, and tomatoes.   

The Memorial’s sixth season of victory gardening is drawing to a close and one thing is very clear: this garden has produced much more than vegetables.  The concept of using a victory garden as a teaching tool took shape in 2007.   Throughout the war years, families, individuals, and groups had planted gardens similar to the Memorial’s Victory Garden, thereby reducing homefront pressure on the food chain and making more commercially grown food available to the frontlines.  Often, victory gardens were cooperative efforts, planted and maintained by churches, clubs, neighborhoods, small businesses, and students at school.  If the food they grew helped satisfy a basic physical need, the physical effort they spent growing it helped satisfy a basic emotional need to participate actively in the battle against the Axis.  Persuaded that the Memorial would serve as a good backdrop for present-day victory gardeners to experience the same sort of satisfaction, the National D-Day Memorial decided to find a way to create one.

 

Following so many historical examples, the Stevens Garden came into existence as a result of a cooperative effort.  Dedicated in March 2007 in tribute to a Bedford farming family and their D-Day-veteran twin sons, this project has engaged a dozen different agencies and organizations from both the public and private sectors.  The Bedford Cooperative Extension Service and 4-H provide gardening and ecology lesson plans, as well as hundreds of volunteer hours from tilling through harvest.  Assisted by members of the Kiwanis Club of Bedford, the Bedford Master Gardeners present a range of garden-based craft activities to young gardeners each week from March to August.  Countless other agencies have provided financial support and supplies. 

The most satisfying part of the project is watching would-be gardeners, many of whom have never held a spade, break ground in the spring and then continue to plant, weed, and harvest in the coming months.  The victory gardeners discover what conditions and care plants need to grow well, and they also learn the details of garden design.  After lessons about soil, composting, mulch, and garden tools, they are ready for a trip to the greenhouse to pick out their plants. The youngsters’ anticipation is palpable and their excitement contagious as they plant everything from corn, tomatoes, green beans and strawberries to marigolds, herbs, and a host of other flowers and vegetables. 

The children visit the garden weekly to weed, water, and learn more about historical gardens and ecology through activities and crafts. The lessons, ample and varied, range from recognizing beneficial insects and birds to distinguishing a weed from a vegetable.  In the process, they make birdhouses, stepping stones, and memory boxes. They pick flower and herb bouquets to give to loved ones, learn how to prepare the vegetables they raise, and of course, each week they take home the harvest to share with their families.

They take home other things, too.  A sense of teamwork soon appears, as older children help younger ones and sharing becomes commonplace. Friendships form between young gardeners and adult volunteers.  Jokes are shared around tomato plants; impromptu games of hide-and-seek between the corn rows break out.  New discoveries abound: watermelons hiding beneath giant green leaves (“We forgot one!” comes a small voice from across the garden), corn silk sprouting (“Look, it’s like hair!”). New attitudes show themselves, too: motivation, curiosity, a sense of pride and ownership. How else does one account for an 8-year-old victory gardener traipsing around in 100 degree heat to pick four strawberries and a bouquet of lemon grass?

The Victory Garden Program concludes each year in August with an end-of-season picnic, featuring foods grown in the Victory Garden.  People gather to recognize the hard work that goes into the project, reflect on what has been gained, and to celebrate the success of their combined efforts.  The Memorial’s garden won a national award in 2008 for being one of the best youth gardening programs in the country.

World War II ended in 1945, but the victory garden, as a vehicle for discovery, has immediacy still. 

Nutritious food, outdoor exercise, increased self-confidence, teamwork, ecological awareness, the wonder of watching a seed become a foot-long carrot − those are the products of the National D-Day Memorial’s Victory garden.  Remembered by those youngsters and perhaps, in due time, refreshed and enriched in garden plots of their own, those experiences will continue to bear fruit long after the season’s soil is turned under in the Memorial’s Victory Garden. The value on a harvest like that is beyond measure.

by April Cheek-Messier
Vice-President for Operations and Education
National D-Day Memorial