Top 10 Best Crops to Grow In A Victory Garden

The victory garden movement gained popularity in both World War I and World War II when American and Canadian citizens were encouraged to grow as many of their own fresh vegetables as possible as part of the war effort on the home front. As a result, commercially grown food could be sent to troops and allies fighting overseas. Today, victory gardens are gaining popularity once again as the world grapples with ongoing supply chain issues, food shortages, and inflation.

Over the past few years, more and more people have woken up to the fact that our food supply chains are fragile. We can’t always count on grocery store shelves to be stocked with whatever we need whenever we need it. And even if shelves are stocked, groceries are no longer as affordable as they once were, and that could continue to get worse.

After decades of being spoiled for choice and having an abundance of affordable food available to us at all times, we’re beginning to realize how risky it can be when we’re 100% dependent on outside sources to provide for us. International supply chains and centralized sources that are often far removed from our communities are especially volatile.

For those of us who already grow some of our own food, I’d argue that we’re already a few steps ahead of the general populace. But still, when we’re faced with the very real possibility of food shortages and continuing supply chain issues in the near future, it can make even the hardiest of homesteaders rethink their vegetable garden plan for the season. After all, if we’re going to really have to depend on our own garden to grow enough food to feed us, it’s a good idea to dedicate the vast majority of our garden space to crops that can truly sustain us all year long.

While it can be fun to experiment with new and different crops in the garden each year, the focus of a victory garden should be on growing as much food and producing as many calories as possible in your own backyard, as well as choosing crops that can be easily preserved to eat throughout the winter too.

In this period of uncertainty, we always have to be thinking a few steps (or a few seasons) ahead. No matter what the future brings, we’ll be as ready as we can possibly be to ride it out and keep ourselves and our families safe, healthy and well-fed…both during the growing season and beyond.

What are the best crops to grow in a Victory Garden?

The first rule of growing your own food is to grow what your family likes to eat! There’s really no point in dedicating valuable garden bed space to edible plants that nobody in your household actually wants to eat. Start by making a list of your favourite vegetables; The ones you and your family tend to eat on a regular basis.

Next, you’ll want to dedicate space to the vegetable plants that will give you the most bang for your buck. If you’re limited on available space, try to avoid crops that take up a lot of space and/or resources for little return. For example, things like artichokes and Romanesco broccoli take up a lot of space in the garden but do not produce large harvests. These are the types of novelty crops that are fun to try, but aren’t necessarily the best choices for maximizing food production, unless of course you REALLY love eating these foods and have ample space to grow them.

Instead, focus on vegetables and varieties that produce a bigger harvest, can be grown densely and/or can be vertically grown, in order to get as much food as possible for the available space you have. Also, grow crops that are versatile and can be stored well to ensure good eating right through the winter months.

During the world wars, citizens were encouraged to convert their own backyard as well as empty spaces and vacant lots around their communities into victory gardens. The focus was really on producing as much food as possible on the home front. This should be the focus of your new victory garden, too.

Top 10 best crops to plant in a Victory Garden

While you shouldn’t take this list as the definitive guide to victory gardening, the following crops are great candidates for victory gardens because they tend to produce a bountiful harvest of nutrient and calorie-dense food. They also require less space (and in some cases less time) than other popular vegetables, preserve well, and are versatile staples in most home kitchens.

Potatoes

Potatoes have been a staple “survival crop” for millennia. These calorie-dense, carbohydrate-rich root crops are high in essential nutrients like fibre, potassium, magnesium and vitamin C. They’re also easy to grow in a variety of growing conditions, and can thrive in the ground, in raised garden beds, containers, grow bags, and even garbage cans.

Potatoes will give you more calories per square foot than just about any other crop, so they’re a great choice for a small victory garden. They also store well and are extremely versatile. They can be turned into everything from hash browns and French fries to mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, gnocchi, potato pies, and pancakes. They’re truly a must-have in any victory garden.

Tomatoes

No garden is complete without tomato plants! Even if you’re not a huge fresh tomato fan, growing a good paste tomato (I grow a local heirloom variety called Ardwyna Paste tomatoes (pictured above), as well as San Marzano paste tomatoes in my own garden) means you can make your own tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes and even sun-dried tomatoes at home. Not to mention, with a few added ingredients that can almost all be grown at home, you can make your own salsa, BBQ sauce, ketchup and other condiments too.

Tomatoes can be preserved in a variety of ways from canning to fermenting to freezing to dehydrating. They’re one of the most versatile crops you can grow and are high in both nutrients and flavour, which is super important if you need to rely almost entirely off of what you’re growing in your own backyard.

 

Beans

All kinds of beans are good options for victory gardeners because they’re high in protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals, and are relatively calorie-dense too.

While any type of beans work well in a victory garden, green pole beans and shelling bean varieties like black beans, broad beans (fava beans) and pinto beans are especially good options.

Pole beans are great because they can be grown vertically, so you can get a bountiful harvest out of a small space. They can also be pressure canned and eaten throughout the winter, and are a versatile vegetable that goes well with everything from roast dinner to stir fry.

Shelling beans are a good idea for the victory garden because the shelled beans can be dried and stored easily without any special equipment. Shelling beans are the quintessential “rice and beans” style beans that most people think of when they think of high-calorie, high-protein survival foods that can see them through any crisis.

Corn

While we often think of sweet corn when we talk about corn nowadays, if you’re focused on growing crops for survival and sustenance, you might want to consider growing field corn varieties like dent corn, flint corn and flour corn.

These types of field corn varieties differ from sweet corn because rather than being eaten fresh on the cob, they are dried and turned into cornmeal and corn flour, which can be made into everything from cornbread to corn tortillas and corn chips. It can also be used to make animal feed.

Corn is a great option for a grain that can be grown at home in a relatively small space, especially compared to other cereal grains like oats, wheat and barley. You might also consider growing popcorn if your family enjoys it! 

Squash

Both summer and winter squash varieties are good options for any victory garden because they’re high-yielding crops that produce so much food for very little effort. But winter squash like pumpkins, acorn squash, butternut squash and spaghetti squash (to name a few) are especially good crops to grow because they’re high in vitamins, they’re prolific growers and they produce a lot of food per fruit. But most of all, winter squash store extremely well for an exceptionally long time without much work or effort.

While it’s possible to can pumpkin and squash or freeze the flesh or pumpkin purée, thick-skinned winter squash will store well in cold storage or even on your pantry shelves for months on end without any special treatment. In fact, we still have spaghetti squash sitting on our shelves right now that was harvested last year…a full six months ago!

Carrots

Carrots are another solid staple crop in any home garden. They’re high in antioxidants and nutrients like vitamin A, they’re pretty easy to grow, and they produce high yields in a fairly small space. They’re also cold-tolerant and can survive light frosts in the garden. While there are many great carrot varieties, I especially like Danvers for their size and hardiness even in rocky soils, and Scarlet Nantes for their length and overall uniformity.

Carrots store well in cold storage, especially when they’re buried in sand. They’re also great candidates for both canning and dehydrating. Alternatively, they can be left out in the garden in more temperate climates and pulled out of the soil whenever you’re ready to eat them!

Cabbage

While cabbage isn’t the most calorically-dense crop, it is a nutritionally-dense crop that actually retains most of its nutrients even when cooked. An excellent way to preserve cabbage is to ferment it into sauerkraut or kimchi, which only makes it even more nutritious!

Fermented cabbage stores well in the fridge or in cold storage, but cabbage is a great storage crop on its own and can be stored whole in cold storage for several months. It’s also a cold-hardy vegetable that keeps going in the garden well into the winter months. Choose a good storage variety like Late Flat Dutch for root cellaring and cold storage—This type of cabbage is also good for making sauerkraut. For homemade kimchi, go with a napa-style Chinese cabbage.

Kale

Green leafy vegetables are extremely high in a wide variety of nutrients including vitamins A, C and K, iron, calcium, folate, magnesium, fibre and potassium, to name a few. But some leafy greens like lettuce don’t store well, so you’re better off to choose a hardy alternative like kale.

Kale is a high-yielding plant that provides fresh greens all through the summer and fall. It’s also a very cold-hardy crop that will last in the garden right through the winter in many places. Alternatively, it can be blanched and frozen or dehydrated and turned into homemade kale chips.

Garlic

Garlic is a must-have in any victory garden. While it’s not a calorie-dense crop, garlic is extremely high in essential nutrients and has medicinal properties such as being antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal and antimicrobial. Not to mention, it’s extremely flavourful and super versatile in the home kitchen. Most garlic varieties like Russian Red and Duganski (hardneck varieties), and Nootka Rose (softneck) store very well (often into the next year) when cured and stored correctly.

Herbs

While herbs aren’t necessarily a staple crop like beans or potatoes, growing a variety of culinary herbs and medicinal herbs in your victory garden will provide you with both fresh food and medicine, and will add flavour to all your home-cooked meals. Plus, most herbs are easy to grow in just about any size space, whether in a sprawling vegetable garden or confined to window boxes.

Rosemary, thyme, chives, oregano and basil are must-haves in any backyard garden, but there are many more herbs you might want to consider for your victory garden, especially if store-bought herbs and spices become harder to find. Check out these 13 culinary and medicinal herbs for your home garden.

Grow your own, for victory!

At the end of the day, there are so many more vegetable plants (and fruits, fruit trees, nuts, herbs, etc.) that you might want to consider adding to your victory garden. Not to mention animals like laying hens as well as dairy and meat animals for a source of protein and fat! However, if you’re limited on available space, these 10 staple fresh vegetables will definitely help boost your food production in your own backyard and see you through hard times.

PS: If you need a little extra help planning your garden, Seedtime is a fantastic all-in-one garden planner and management app that I have personally used and loved. It can help you with timing, spacing, companion planting, and so much more. The best part is that the basic version is totally free (and actually quite robust!) Check out Seedtime here.

Wanna learn how to grow your own food?

Let’s face it: food costs are skyrocketing and only continuing to go up. Growing your own food is basically like printing your own money! Not to mention how much healthier and better-tasting it is. And you might be surprised by just how much food you can grow in a relatively small space.

But if you’re new to gardening, it can feel intimidating to get started. I know, because I was once a beginner who had NO CLUE what I was doing—and I made plenty of mistakes that cost me both time and money along the way.

Over the past 10+ years, I’ve learned how to feed my family from our backyard (well… front yard, actually!) on our modest quarter-acre property. Today, I grow hundreds of pounds of food for our family every year for practically free. Yes, there are some startup costs—but they pay big dividends for years to come. Investing in a garden is just about the smartest investment you can make nowadays!

If you’re ready to make that investment in your family’s food security, I’d love to invite you to join me inside my signature program, Seed-to-Soil.

Inside the course, I’ll teach you step-by-step exactly how to grow your own food from seed and create your very own organic grocery store right in your backyard. From choosing the right seeds and starting them successfully, to planting, harvesting, and even saving seeds for the following season, you’ll learn the simple, proven system I’ve used to grow abundant food year after year.

If you’re ready to stop relying entirely on the grocery store and start growing real food for your family, click here to enroll in Seed-to-Soil today.

I can’t wait to see you inside:)

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• How to Grow Tomatoes from Seed
• How to Grow Pumpkins from Seed
• How to Grow Carrots from Seed
• How to Grow Tomatoes from Seed
• How to Find Your Gardening Zone and Frost Dates
• How to Grow, Cure & Store Garlic At Home
• How to Grow More Food In Less Space
• 12 Edible Perennials to Plant Once and Harvest Every Year
• How to Grow An Heirloom Vegetable Garden