My Victory Garden 1979

For those of you who remember PBS’s Victory Garden: It was originally Crockett’s Victory Garden.

From the WGBH Archives:

“Hosted by James Underwood Crockett, the series offered practical advice on vegetable and flower gardening and the latest in horticultural developments. It began airing locally April 16, 1975 and premiered nationally on PBS April 7, 1976. The series was hosted by Jim Crockett until his death in 1979. The series was then renamed The Victory Garden.”

I had gardened continuously ever since I was a child on the farm, walking down the rows of freshly planted potatoes. One of my siblings dropped the potato cutting into the trench, my mother covered the potato with soil, and I stomped on the soil to pack it down. Long rows of potatoes resulted in 2 or 3 full-size wooden steel-belted barrels in our dirt-floored cellar for winter.

Dirt was permanently beneath my fingernails, so when Boston’s WGBH had a “First Annual Victory Garden” contest in 1979, I was excited to enter my garden photo.

At age 29., I was thrilled to receive an Honorable Mention. My framed award and the winning photo of me in my Massachusetts garden that year have traveled with me for the last 48 years.