Victory Gardens inspired hope

Gardening is as much a part of being a Southerner as weekend football games and a trip to one's favorite fishing hole. Yet in another era, gardening was a survival tool and the Federal government encouraged US citizens to plant gardens everywhere. Even local railroad companies encouraged its workers to plant gardens along the tracks.

Vegetable gardens have always been in the arsenal of preppers in the South going back to the early frontier of the 1700s. The items produced in the garden was often canned, placed in root cellars, bartered or sold as a matter of sustenance for the grower.

On May 2...