Book Review on the Dig for Victory Campaign

As the nights draw in I find myself under a wool blanket (and usually a cat) with a good book. I wanted to share my recommendation for The Spade as Mighty as the Sword by Daniel Smith.

I picked this little gem up a few months ago at one of those book stores where everything is discounted. If you're interested in the Second World War and how the Dig for Victory campaign came about, this book gives a full overview.

It gives background about how the nation sourced its food prior to the war, how government policy came into being, how commercial and farm production changed and how each person was encouraged to take part.

It does have a few pages in the centre with black and white photos.

A poster from the campaign at the Duxford Imperial War Museum 

The most interesting thing that I learned from it is that the original campaign was not called 'Dig for Victory' but instead was 'Grow More Food.' In 1939 it went through a re-branding effort which seems to have paid off.

One of the Amazon reviewers stated that the book isn't much of a nail biter. I find that sort of true, it does read like a history textbook at times, dense with facts. However, it is also filled with personal anecdotes of how people reacted to government policies which balances it out.

Another neat things that I learned from this book: by 1943, 25% of fresh eggs were coming from home coops, can you imagine that today?

It also states that in 1942, 55 - 60% of families were growing some part of their own food.

If you're interested in this time period or how the nation produced and consumed food at the time, I'd highly recommend this book.

A bit of reading material

Not a lot has happened on the farm this week as the weather has been decidedly cold, wet and windy. I popped down today in the brief hour of sunshine and did a bit of picking, dug out some sprawling raspberry canes and dropped off a couple of pallets I'd got from a community website to use for my irrigation system. A haul of rather small but usable veg.....

At home I've been doing some potting up etc. I have one more job to do then I'll blog the progress, but for this entry as the heading says, its about reading material.

The last week or so I've been reading Digger's Diary - Tales from the Allotment by Victor Osbourne. Victor has been writing for the Telegraph's weekend section since 1996 and this book chronicles a year on his allotment. It's not a gardening book, or a cookery book but I found I picked up some tips and a couple of recipes to try. It's a humorous look at allotment life, the regular characters and trials and tribulations that we all encounter. Well written and well worth a read.

My copy was found by Heather at the local scout book sale, but it's available on amazon HERE

I like reading other peoples blogs and seeing how they are getting on, getting ideas and following their progress, during a bit of surfing time this week I found some new blogs to read. I added them to the Blogs section on here, I hope you enjoy them to.

http://www.allotmentlifestyle.co.uk/

http://www.jasonsjungle.co.uk/

https://sharpenyourspades.com/

I even discovered that one of the large council allotment sites in Chelmsford has an allotment association that has been running for over 50 years with a trading hut and regular social do's etc, something I feel our site is a bit lacking. The councils BBQ ban doesn't help I guess. I hope to visit the trading hut soon.

And finally.... the seed companies have done it again. I was looking through the seeds and found my carrots are rather a late variety. I was thinking I should get some other variety and as if by magic this arrived................it's fate I tell you!!

Happy gardening Folks