The Demo Garden Blog

Victory Gardens

Historically, Victory Gardens are used to supplement the food supply during difficult times. The idea behind our 21^st century Victory Garden (Demo Garden beds 1 & 7) came from our need to conserve water in the garden and our desire to share the harvest.

Master Gardeners, tending to the Victory Garden, selected colorful drought tolerant varieties of cabbage, carrot, lettuce, onion, potato, radish, spinach, and peas. To encourage observers to make comparisons, many of the plant types are represented by two or more varieties. The rationale for plants growing in the Victory Garden beds includes:

• Three carrot varieties, selected for yield and color.
• As an experiment, onions were started using three methods 1) indoor seeding, 2) direct seeding and 3) transplant of onion sets.
• Two pea varieties, planted at the same time, yield different sized plants.
• Three potato varieties, selected for patriotic colors (red, white, and blue).
• Two varieties of radish, selected for color and size.

The next page shows details about the various vegetables growing our Victory Garden (click on page to enlarge & again to reduce).  

Kansas Garden Guide

Did you know that Chapter 15 (pages 133-198) of the Kansas Garden Guide has a complete list of vegetables that grow particularly well in Kansas? Appearing at the end of the chapter is helpful information about times to plant and harvest.

Harvesting Continues

Plant a Row & ICT Food Rescue

As mentioned in the overall description of the 2025 Demo Garden, we have historically donated our harvest to the Sedgwick County Plant a Row (PAR) program, which is in its 25^th year! As of June 1^st, the community collection sites are open to receive harvested produce for distribution by ICT Food Rescue. There’s more information about PAR and harvest drop-off locations at the Sedgwick County Local Foods website, please take a look.  

Thanks for reading this post

There’s more to come in June, so keep returning to check out what we’re up to in the Demo Garden!

Reference

McMahon, R., Cloyd, R., et al. (2023). Kansas Garden Guide (Chapter 13,  Harvesting and Storing), accessed May 19, 2025 at: https://bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/pubs/kansas-garden-guide_S51.pdf