Here’s an interesting article about Victory Gardens during WWII and what happened afterward.

Following the cessation of the war, mass interest in home gardening as a national duty, as well as government support, dried up almost instantly. The post-war shift in agriculture from small and local to large-scale, monoculture meant the increased use of chemical pesticides, shrinking of varieties and genetic modification. Henry Ford was on to something when he proclaimed: “No unemployment insurance can be compared to an alliance between man and a plot of land.” But following WWII, gardening was relegated to a quaint hobby.

Self Reliance Exchange has posted a series of articles on low profile living, or living so as not to attract notice from others. I saw similar articles there a few days ago but initially thought they were being just a bit too paranoid. The more I think about it, though, it’s not so crazy. There is a fine line to be considered these days between trusting people too much and shutting oneself off from society. Everyone needs to draw their own line, but there are still ways to take as few risks as possible of letting too many people know too much about you.

Read the above articles and decide for yourself. It’s worth pondering.

Chronogram magazine has an interesting article about the resurgence in people living more off their land. Their reasons, as expected, are varied, but most report an interest in getting back to their roots. There is certainly a hint of Thoreau to the whole article:

Since buying their three-acre Stone Ridge property 11 years ago, visual artists Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano have turned it into an oasis worthy of a photo spread in Horticulture magazine. They’ve planted a host of fruit trees and other edibles, including exotics like ginseng and Siberian kiwi. They’ve put in a cranberry bog, a lotus garden, and even (cue the music from Little Shop of Horrors) a bog for carnivorous plants. They tap their maple trees and raise chickens. They make teas and soda from sassafras and wintergreen and forage throughout the seasons for ramps, wild asparagus, berries, and more.

Tired just thinking about it? Then you’re not Levy or Serrano. They recently purchased eight acres across the road with the goal of planting a diversity of nut trees there. Pecans, almonds, Korean pine.

So what’s with the two artists? Are they, like the trees they’re planting, nuts? No. There’s a fine line between passion and compulsion, and Levy and Serrano are treading it with palpable delight. This isn’t a hobby they’re pursuing, and it’s not a shallow and disposable “lifestyle,” either. What Levy and Serrano are doing runs deep. “Sometimes this seems overwhelming,” says Serrano. “But when you’re really passionate about something, as we are about our land, it doesn’t feel like work.”