While many refer to gardening as a hobby today, gardening was a necessity for survival nearly 90 years ago during the Great Depression. And contrary to what you may think, not everyone knew how to garden back then.
By 1933, there were three large government-funded community gardens in Portsmouth as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and its nationwide subsistence gardens program, which were also known as the emergency gardens, relief gardens and welfare gardens.
Two subsistence garden plots were on city property at the New Franklin School and Atlantic Heights School. The city’s third and ultimately largest of the garden plots was on land in the West End owned by the Portsmouth Building Association. The land was part of its Westfield Park housing development off Islington Street in in the vicinity of Aldrich, Thaxter and Spinney roads. The Portsmouth Building Association was a group of businessmen and members of the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce who desired to meet the vital needs of improving Portsmouth and its inhabitants.