YARD AND GARDEN: A garden for every child, a child in every garden – Journal Gazette / Times-Courier

I was listening to a podcast by Moxie LaBouche called Your Brain on Facts and she mentioned the U.S. School Garden Army. While "Victory Gardens" were well known, (Plant a row to feed the hungry) this program was totally new to me so I did some digging!

The School Garden Army was created in March 1918 by the U.S. Bureau of Education, funded by the War Department and blessed by President Woodrow Wilson. The motto was "A garden for every child, every child in a garden." Each "soldier of the soil" pledged to "Consecrate my head, heart, hand and health through food production and food conservation to help the World War and world peace." (Sound familiar, 4-H kids?)

This program enlisted boys and girls at school and at home into planting gardens to help in the fight in France during World War I. Many of our nations food supplies were used to feed our soldiers, and this program was a real and patriotic way for kids to be involved in feeding their own families and supporting the war efforts.

It was even suggested that they name their garden plot after someone they knew who was fighting abroad. The government estimated that there were 7 million children ages 9 to 16 who could help by growing vegetables, berries, fruits and poultry.

Government publications were sent to teachers. The courses included lessons on nature, preparing soil, sowing seed, caring for the soil and harvesting the crops. Food canning and preservation was also taught. Urban and suburban students learned how to garden and learned to experience the rural kids' way of life.

Teachers were provided with Spring and Fall Manuals of the United States School Garden Army, insignia or service badges for officers and privates, service flags for Garden Army Soldiers, Pied Piper posters and regional leaflets for supervisors and teachers. The teachers provided gardening experience and learning opportunities for lifelong skills.

Some of the lessons in the manuals include: how to plan your garden, calendar of planting and care, plants to grow, adding flowers and fortifying the soil. They also discussed using what we currently call cover crops by planting cowpeas, soybeans and vetch and crop rotation. Hot beds and cold frame building instructions were offered along with methods of extending the seasons to allow more food production. Maturity descriptions of when to pick produce were included along with how to store vegetables on pantry shelves, in the cellar and in an outdoor pit.

Another lesson stressed that it was a patriotic duty to sell excess produce as it provides food for others and an opportunity for household income or money to invest in War Savings Stamps. This important lesson also taught thrift and an introduction to a "business system" that includes marketing strategies.

In reading some of the publications, methods and chemicals have changed from what was taught over 100 years ago. We do not use the same kinds of pesticides for example: arsenate of lead, kerosene wash or emulsion and Paris green. I've also never had the opportunity to use a wheel hoe. Street sweepings are we talking "road apples" here? coal and wood ash aren't things that a lot of homes have on hand these days.

The Garden Army was run similar to a military unit; they had requirements for enlistment, companies, officers and insignias. The soil soldiers needed to keep their equipment clean, keep the garden orderly while being part of a patriotic effort.

If you have questions about your garden or landscape, contact a master gardener at the University of Illinois Extension office in Mattoon at 217-345-7034 or through our online hotline at forms.illinois.edu/sec/1523725. Be sure to visit U of I Extension's horticulture website, exteniosn.illinois.edu/ccdms, and like the Master Gardeners' Facebook page, @ColesCountyMasterGardeners.

From the Nov. 22, 1992, Journal Gazette, this photo of Cosmic Blue Comics in Mattoon; where I spent virtually every Saturday afternoon for about two years. That small back room you see just off to the right of the Coca-Cola sign was where they kept the many, and I mean many, long-boxes of back issues. I still own my bagged copy of "Tales of the Beanworld" issue No. 1 that I found back there. Sadly, this location is now just a "greenspace".

Pictured, Shelbyville's Bob Murray from the June 2, 1982, Journal Gazette, displaying his dominance over the TRON arcade game at the "Carousel Time" arcade at the Cross County Mall, later to be the Aladdin's Castle, soon thereafter to be not a thing anymore. I spent just about every Saturday at that arcade, perhaps with that exact same haircut. No overalls, though. I was more of an "Ocean Pacific" kind of kid.

Pictured, from the Nov. 28, 1988, Journal Gazette, Icenogle's grocery store. Being from Cooks Mills, we didn't often shop at Icenogle's...but when we did, even as a kid, I knew it was the way a grocery store is supposed to be in a perfect world, and that's not just because they had wood floors, comic books on the magazine rack, or plenty, and I mean plenty, of trading cards in wax packs.

I had long since moved away from Cooks Mills by the time this Showcase item about Adam's Groceries ran in the June 13, 1998, Journal Gazette, but there was a time when I very well could have been one of those kids in that photo; for if it was summer, and you had a bike, and you lived in Cooks Mills, that's where you ended up. At last report, they still had Tab in the Pepsi-branded cooler in the back. I'm seriously considering asking my money guy if I could afford to reopen this place.

Pictured, from the July 16, 1987, Journal Gazette, this ad for Mister Music, formerly located in the Cross County Mall. I wasn't buying records at that age, but I would eventually, and that's where it all went down. If you don't think it sounds "cool" to hang out at a record store with your buddies on a Friday night, a piping-hot driver's license fresh in your wallet, you'd be right. But it's the best a geek like me could do. Wherever you are today, owners of Mister Music, please know that a Minutemen album I found in your cheap bin changed my life.

Portrait of the author as a young man, about to throw a guitar through a target at that year's Sound Source Music Guitar Throwing Contest, from the April 18, 1994, Journal Gazette. Check out my grunge-era hoodie, and yes...look carefully, those are Air Jordans you see on my feet. Addendum: despite what the cutline says, I did not win a guitar.

Pictured, clipped from the online archives at JG-TC.com, a photo from the April 18, 1994, Journal Gazette of Sound Source Music Guitar Throwing Contest winner, and current JG-TC staff writer, Clint Walker.

Here today, gone tomorrow, Vette's Teen Club, from the June 20, 1991, Journal Gazette. I wasn't "cool" enough to hang out at Vette's back in it's "heyday," and by "cool enough" I mean, "not proficient enough in parking lot fights." If only I could get a crack at it now.

FutureGen: The end of the beginning, and eventually, the beginning of the end, from the Dec. 19, 2007, JG-TC. I wish I had been paying more attention at the time. I probably should have been reading the newspaper.

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YARD AND GARDEN: A garden for every child, a child in every garden - Journal Gazette / Times-Courier