Victory Gardens touted on Pearl Harbor Day

The Fresno morning news show KSEE Sunrise used the occasion of Pearl Harbor Day yesterday to encourage people to plant Victory Gardens. Victory Gardens are fruit, vegetable and herb gardens that Americans traditionally planted during wartime to aid the war effort.

Director of UC Cooperative Extension in Ventura County, Rose Hayden-Smith, is a vocal proponent of a Victory Garden resurgence in California. She maintains a Victory Grower Web site and blog. Hayden-Smith says the connection between American military involvement and the home front isn't what it was in the past, but the American way of life is imperiled by more than foreign wars. The country is facing ever rising fuel and food prices, the threat of global warming and a high rate of obesity.

UC Cooperative Extension Fresno County Master Gardener Carole Grosch explained on the morning TV program that gardening is not just for summertime, but that in most of California a variety of vegetables can be grown outdoors through the winter, such as lettuce, Swiss chard, onions and spinach.

The Fresno County Master Gardeners appear on KSEE Sunrise once a month year round to provide gardening tips and raise awareness for the county's very active Master Gardener program, which involves nearly 200 volunteers and includes a one-acre Garden of the Sun demonstration garden at the corner of Winery and McKinley avenues in Fresno.

Master Gardeners work at the UC Hansen Research and Extension Center in Ventura County.

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