Victory Gardens...perhaps "Unemployment Gardens" more apt?

So there is a renewed interest in the 1940's Victory Garden. For those of you scratching your head going, "huh?" The Victory Garden was the Depression/Rebuilding's era idea of feeding yourselves to help the country. Looks like now that times are rough once again, people should seriously take a look at starting a garden..an odd post in October perhaps, but there are such things as greenhouses, and even better-you can start your own "grow room".

I know what you are thinking, a "grow room" seriously? Isn't that what marijuana grower's use to hide their illicit activities? Yes, but...

Since the advancement of growing technology, there are (relatively) inexpensive lighting and hydro- or aeroponic systems you can buy to start your year round harvest. Make your veggies and fruits perennials! There are LED lighting systems that use as much as 1/10th the power to grow your gardens and are similarly priced as the 1000W Metal Halide or Sodium lights. And they have anywhere from 50,000 to 80,000 hours before replacement becomes necessary. That is like 7 or 8 YEARS of full time use.

The best part is that you can increase that lifetime by only using them in the winter months and using plain ole' sunshine in the summer. A light that covers approx. 100 square feet (a 10X10 room)is only about a foot in diameter, $200 and most(if not all) are considered "plug and play" which is, you can hang them (with the included hanging chain) and them plug them in and they are ready to go. If you want to do year round growing in a much larger growhouse/greenhouse there is a 300W option that will run you about $750-1250 though some top of the line models run as high as $1800(totally inflated in my opinion).

These lights run very cool as compared to their fluorescent counterparts (and for the paranoid, are not hot enough to register on DEA IR flyby's), they do not contain mercury, are not made of glass and will not shatter, and use a much smaller portion of energy than the "old traditional" lights do. Seems very win-win to me! For the uber "green" you could set this up with a correct wattage solar panel or wind turbine for increased savings.

If you elected to use pots and potting soil you could decrease your initial monetary output (though your food harvest would be lower as well) but overall, if you used these full time, you would realize your savings in just under a year, especially with a hydro or aeroponic system. and even more especially if you used any surplus to sell to friends/family or for bartering. Most, if not all fruits and vegetables can be grown this way and well...with the possibility of famine around the corner(if some economists are to be believed), you just might want your food crop hidden...

Literally, food for thought.