Storing Vegetables Outdoors

1941
Sound
9m

Building a larder using soil and straw: this age-old method was a boon to home-front gardeners

This Ministry of Information film is a straightforward, no-frills demonstration of how to store roots vegetables outside by a traditional method known as 'clamping', which had been used for centuries. Horticultural journalist and broadcaster Roy Hay narrates, as a gardener demonstrates how to construct a clamp, a cheap and efficient way of storing vegetables such as potatoes and carrots by insulating them with soil and straw in a pyramid structure. The benefits are emphasised at the film's conclusion - the clamp will protect the vegetables against all types of weather and keep them fresh until they are needed.

How to store potatoes and carrots in clamps.

Dig for Victory

Keeping the nation fed and healthy was the greatest priority of the Home Front. Women replaced absent farm workers, while ordinary Britons were exhorted to 'grow their own'.

'Dig for Victory' was perhaps the most successful official campaign of the Home Front. Britons in their millions picked up their trowels, and acre after acre of parkland, waste ground - even back gardens - was repurposed as makeshift vegetable plots. Just as the factories were constantly increasing their productivity, great efforts were made to increase agricultural yields, while the 'land girls' of the Women's Land Army enthusiastically took the place of farmworkers fighting overseas.