Victory Guard In

Last updated on March 5, 2025

We know we’re all essentially screwed, right? The shenanigans of the last week have left us in a nonpartisan timeline of simultaneously suffering all four Horsemen of Apocalypse – Death, Pestilence, Famine, and War – at the insistence of the grossly underestimated but massively potent Fifth Horseman, Idiocy.

Feelings of stress, despondency, depression, helplessness, and rage are all completely normal right now, and that’s their intention: to overwhelm us with disinformation and disruption so aggressively that we’re frozen into inaction.

There are tons of things that we can be doing right now, but it’s hard to nail down one thing that will make any difference. The ACLU is filing legal challenges and lawsuits left and right (pun intended), people are protesting in incredible numbers, and multiple state and municipal governments are calling the administration out on its bullshit.

Even when it hits close to home, though, it feels like there’s little that we as individuals can do. And that’s also part of their play: to make you feel small and insignificant and helpless. I have some suggestions.

Step 1: Plant a Tree or Something

It doesn’t actually have to be a tree, but planting food will be a very important first step. No matter who’s in charge or what’s going on, the basic survival needs will always have priority: Food, Water, Shelter, Safety. I don’t think it’s an accident that many of the first-tier executive orders have been threatening these very things: Without those fundamentals safeguarded, it’s very difficult for people to organize enough to cause major change.

With America’s Bread Basket functionally crippled for the year and food imports from our biggest providers (Mexico and Canada) stunted by unwarranted tariffs – and add to that the impact that the avian flu is having on eggs and other dairy products – we’re looking at a recipe for disaster the likes of which the US has rarely if ever seen. There have been fits of famine and food shortages in areas in the past such as the Dust Bowl that swept through the Great Plains, (Steinbeck mentioned this in the Grapes of Wrath, which he stole from Sanora Babb), but we could be seeing some massive cascading that affects everyone all over the country.

There were other times when our basic needs were threatened on a large scale such as when we were suddenly faced with the need to send massive amounts of food and provisions overseas to protect Our Boys during World War II. The answer to this was Victory Gardens, where every homestead (rented or owned) was encouraged to make every bit of land fruitful (pun intended) so that the major production agriculture could be used for the war effort.

There is absolutely nothing that says we can’t start that again on our own, wrangling our municipalities into sponsoring community gardens and private plots, except…

Step 1-A: Wait, Before You Dig…

There’s also this little problem of global climate destabilization.

I really hate having to add “global” to that phrase because, while it is completely true and there is no part of the planet that isn’t affected by anthropogenic climate impact, it tends to separate the average reader/viewer/person from connecting with the reality that the climate destabilization impact is coming from inside the house. It’s here, on our door step, and it means that every gardening book my grandmother collected is essentially useless.

We’ve got to be ready to learn how to do this on the fly, using science and common sense.

Container gardening makes food production accessible to anyone, even those living in apartments and those with crappy black clay soil. That also allows you to grow a lot of different types of food that maybe your local soil won’t necessarily support.

Greenhouses are a great option, but instead of trying to keep things warm year round, make sure you can cool off your plants at the height of summer.

Hydroponics is another option if you have to space and don’t mind getting a little more science-y.

And there’s always the tried-and-sometimes-true in-ground gardening that everyone knows and loves, but keep in mind that at least here in Texas, it didn’t freeze nearly long enough to kill off (enough) harmful bugs. It’s going to be a long and arduous task to protect your crops from squash bugs and other asshole insects in addition to having to aggressively protect yourself from mosquitos (Mother Nature’s most vampiric pathogen vector).

NOTE: I am planning a little experiment in my front yard to see if the addition of sand and hydrogels to the black clay will make the soil more amenable to growing literally anything. I’m going for a Three Sisters approach first, though, because I’m an old softy.

Step 2: Make a Friend

No, not like in a body-building contest. Become friendly with your neighbors if you can, and start spreading out the community vibes. Part of why this current barrage of propaganda has been so successful is that the individualistic culture we live in has cast anyone not exactly us as less than worthy of our attention. I mentioned before about the differences between individualistic and collectivist cultures, and the biggest and most important one right now is that collectivist cultures already understand that there’s no such thing as a “self-made man”.

(I am, once again, not going to get into that discussion, but it is coming.)

Going back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it’s Food, Shelter, Water, Safety, etc., as the predicate for literally everything else. Well, community gardening helps with the food, so what about the rest of it? You need to know people who know how to filter water to make it clean. You need to know people who can knit and sew. You need to know people who can till and plant and weed. You need to know people who can fix cars, who can suture wounds, who can distill alcohol, who can cook for massive numbers of people. And especially if you can already do all of these things yourself, you definitely need other people who can do them because what if something happens to you?

There’s another aspect of the individualistic versus collectivist culture that I need to touch on here, and that is that we’re not supposed to be doing everything by ourselves. Our standard of living and quality of life is based on a household dynamic that doesn’t exist anymore: no one can do everything that’s required to run a house of multiple people by themselves, whether they’re working elsewise or not, and not for any extended period of time. Collectivist cultures understand instinctively that division of labor means more leisure and more prosperity for everyone.

So, join a club, start talking about the what-ifs and the maybe-in-cases. Because…

Step 3: Plan For Disaster

Again with the climate change talk, but that’s what’s driving record numbers of tornadoes, hurricanes, polar vortices, and heat waves. And then there’s wildfires, floods, and killer bees. (Okay, not so much the bees anymore.)

That means you gotta be ready for almost anything.

• Make sure you have canned and non-perishable foods (check the dates) that will last your household at least a couple of weeks. (Some say a month, some say two months.)
• Same goes for water: reuse juice jugs (sanitize them first) and keep enough stashed to last a month or two. There’s a difference between potable water and non-potable water, know what it is.
• Consider getting into dehydration, canning, and other forms of food preservation.
• Put together bug-out bags for getting out in a hurry, and make sure that you count everyone in your household when you stock them up.
• Communicate meet-up places with your people before the worst happens.

Because it will.

We’re at a point in the Stupidest Timeline when disasters are no longer a matter of “if” but rather “when”.

Well, Then, What If All This Gardening Is For Nothing?

It’s not. It never is. Every time you’re successful – and every time you fail – you learn something that can help you in the future.

I hemmed and hawed myself about whether or not to start a garden with the hard truth that we might have to leave at some point because of fire or flood or whatever, but the fact is, we can’t afford to plan for only one future. Everything is massively uncertain, we don’t know what tomorrow brings, we barely can count on things to stay the same from morning to afternoon.

But, quite often, the preparations that we make aren’t for us: they’re for the people around us, and they’re for the people who come after us.

So, yeah, plant a tree, even if you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to sit in its shade.

Thanks to Rob Brown from Pixabay for the header image.