The things that the men want to raise most, in
order of choice, are green corn, tomatoes, and peppers. None of these do very
well in England unless there is a glass house to build up sufficient heat.
Tomatoes are small; there are none of those master beefsteak tomatoes bursting
with juice. It is a short, cool season. Green corn has little chance to mature
and the peppers must be raised under glass. Nevertheless, every care is taken
to raise them. Men who are homesick seem to take a mighty pleasure in working
with the soil.
The gardens usually start out ambitiously.
Watermelons and cantaloupes are planted and they have practically no chance of
maturing at this latitude, where even cucumbers are usually raised in glass
houses, but gradually some order grows out of the confusion. Lettuce, peas,
green beans, green onions, potatoes do very well here, as do cabbages and
turnips and beets and carrots. The gardens are lush and well tended. In the
evenings, which are very long now, the men work in the beds. It does not get
dark until eleven o’clock, there are only so many movies to be seen, English
pubs are not exciting, but there does seem to be a constant excitement about
the gardens, and the produce that comes from them tastes much better than that
purchased in the open market.
One station has its headquarters in a large
English country house which at one time must have been very luxurious. Part of
the equipment of this place is a series of glass houses, and here the gardens
are exceptional. There has never been any need to exert pressure to get the men
to work in the gardens. They have taken it up with enthusiasm and in many cases
men from the cities, who have never had a garden in their lives, have become enthusiastic.
There is some contact with the normal about the garden, a kind of relationship
with peace.
Now and then a garden just coming in to produce
must be deserted as the unit is shifted to another area. But this does not seem
to make any difference. The new unit takes over the garden, and the old one, if
there is none at the new station, starts afresh. The value is in the doing of
it. The morale value of the experiment is very high, so high that it is being
suggested that supply officers should be equipped with an assortment of seeds
as a matter of course. The seed takes up little room and gardening equipment
can be made on the spot or is available nearly everywhere.
