Vegetable Growing at Home

This short film is a government-produced educational film designed to encourage viewers to grow their own vegetables at home during the Second World War. Produced by the Victorian Department of Agriculture, the film features a suburban couple who receive a brochure in the mail called ‘Wartime Vegetable Growing at Home’. The educational intent of the film is interspersed with comic scenes predicated on the (now outdated) gender roles of the time as the domestic housewife, Mary, sabotages her husband’s plans to play golf and convinces him to start a vegetable garden. With the assistance of the girl next door, a student at the Burnley School of Horticulture, the hapless husband begins transforming his patch of grass and stops sulking. Moving to an instructional section filmed at the Burnley School of Horticulture, the film’s narrator explains how to dig a patch, turn over and rake the soil, and plant seeds, with the process performed by another expert female gardener (despite clearly being a skilled professional, the narrator mocks her for being a woman). The gardener then demonstrates how to thin out young plants, cultivate the soil and deal with pests, with occasional interludes back to the comic scenes of the domestic couple. Finally, the film shows the rewards of growing your own vegetables, with a bountiful harvest from the garden.