As long as I can remember Dad has had a victory garden. As opposed to a botanical garden, layered and landscaped to create an overall effect, a victory garden is like having a miniature farm.   I suppose you could layer and landscape it, but generally speaking, a victory garden is grown for the practical aspect of growing fresh vegetables and herbs to eat. You may say "Hey, I can get fresh vegetables at the Piggly Wiggly!"

The simple answer to that is, "No, you can't." Sadly, a lot of people only know a vegetable's taste based on what they have purchased in a supermarket.

When I lived in Los Angeles, Mom would  send a box of Dad's home grown Jersey tomatoes every summer, which was probably against California law, terrified as they were of Medflies. I would share these tomatoes with friends who were amazed at the saturated flavor.

And you may say, "I buy organic hothouse tomatoes for three times the price and know of what flavor you speak."

The simple answer to that is, "No, you don't." While the hothouse stuff may be a step up, these veggies have still been picked early for shipment. There's just no way corporate farms can let their crops stay on-vine until they are completely ripe, and that's the basic difference. Soil and climate play a major role too, but I'll touch on that later.

During World War II, the US government coined the term "Victory Garden" to encourage its food-rationed citizens to grow their own vegetables to help in the war effort.   Civilians no longer have to sacrifice for the country's wars. There are no "mission accomplished" gardens springing up in the heartland.  "Victory Garden" is now just an obsolete idiomatic term, a leftover from our popular lexicon of the 1940's.

As a kid, the only thing I ever learned about Dad's garden was that I was to stay the hell out of it.   It was Dad's private, mosquito infested retreat.   So I'd see him doing things out there, plowing the dirt with a beastly roto-tiller, spreading unknown powders, setting poles in the ground, and so on.   As the summer progressed, we'd have the same vegetables every night until we were well sick of them.   I was a very fussy eater then, so appreciation for this incredible fresh bounty was lost on me.   Stupid little twit.

Dad is 81 now, and just walking in the garden is an adventure in not falling down. Over the past six years, I've been doing more and more of the work for him.   It started out with just weeding.   Since moving to the house next door in 2005, I've taken over the operation.   Dad's role has mostly been to sit on a bench and tell me I'm doing it wrong.

Dad gave me a book that I've found most useful, Crockett's Victory Garden, first published in 1977.   Some of you may remember the show of the same name that ran on PBS in the '70's and early '80's.   The book is broken up into monthly chapters, telling you what to do each month to plan and execute a successful garden.  He writes from first hand experience, in plain language.

You won't just come away with fresh vegggies with a victory garden. There's also a sense of satisfaction out of creating the garden itself over a period of months. The time spent in the garden, my mind can go for a wander and come back in an hour or three. Gardening is also a nice workout and an excuse to be outside, a place animators tend shun lest they lose their pasty luster.

Gardening can also be a family affair. On the day we tilled the field, my son Chris helped out. He's 15 now, so I let him drive the roto-beast for the first time. His initial thrill soon gave way to the realization that this was hard work. He's a good sport, though, he doesn't quit or complain, he just gets a distressed look on his face.     

If you think you'd like to try a victory garden, here's some steps to get started:

1. Find a good space.   You need to have a spot that gets plenty of sun and has good drainage.   You don't need a huge yard to plant vegetables. I have a friend who grew tomatoes and zucchini in a 12 X 4 flowerbed next to his driveway.    When deciding on a garden size, be honest with yourself; how much garden do you have time to manage?   Gardens are only fun when they succeed, unless you're a masochist.

2. Do a little homework before you start digging things up.    Find out what kind of soil you have.   Is it sandy?   Rich?   Acidic?   Test the Ph (any garden center has Ph test kits).   Once you know what kind of dirt you have, you can seek out plants that thrive in it. I've killed plenty of plants because they didn't like the dirt. You should also find out what plants grow best in your region.  Serano chilies grew very well in my yard in California, but not so well in New Jersey. If you go to a good nursery, they can steer you in the right direction with this kind of stuff. The guys at Home Depot will just say, "Duuuuuuuuuuuu........"

3. Drawing a schematic will help you think out your garden before walking into a nursery. Consider the direction of the Sun, especially if your space gets partial shade, as that may determine what plants go there and which go in the full Sun. Think about what vegetables you like to eat the most, and how many plants you might need to satisfy. Walking into a nursery can be overwhelming, but with a list you'll stay on track.

Dad shows Chris how to plant the onion sets.

Where I live it's time to plant the early crop, that is, plants that will grow in very cool spring weather.  We've chosen broccoli, lettuce, peas, and onions for starters. We'll harvest in June.

Before planting, comes tilling. For a small garden, a shovel and a hoe will work, but our garden covers about a 60X45 foot area, so out comes the roto-beast. I remember as a kid there was always some jerk running his farm equipment early on Saturday morning. Eh! If you're using a shovel, dig down about a foot just to loosen everything up, then bust up the shovelled clumps with the hoe or garden rake. Then mix in whatever soil additives you may need.

The roto-beast at work. Hey neighbors! Wake up!

The blank canvas. Dad and Chris check out the freshly tilled field.

Once thoroughly tilled, Chris and I created isles, paths for Dad to walk on, from rolled out material used to made for suppressing weeds.   Dad has taken more than one spill in the soft dirt, so this year I'm trying a walking path. 

Chris plants onion sets.

Isles set surround the early crop. In the far right row, horseradish comes up perennially.

In consequent issues I will share with you my finite knowledge vegetable gardening by creating a chronicle of this year's victory garden. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't. We'll see how it goes.

If you have a victory garden, large or small, anywhere in the world, write to FLIP and share your story too!

©2008 Moore Studios, Inc
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Tracy is a fictional documentary about Tracy Knapp the host of a 1970's children show called The Imagination Train Station. The film is about his life, his resentful son, his alcoholic ex-wife, and his mysterious death in 1995. It's a comedy.

The idea for the film came in 2003. Fellow story artist Brian Fee and I were trying to think of a short film idea to work on in our (then) endless spare time. We started talking about all the creepy 1970's children's shows we loved as kids, and how a lot of the hosts looked like porn stars. We thought it would be great if Brian played one of those host, with a porn afro and matching bushy mustache. The idea started as a short, but that weekend I came up with the basic idea for the feature, wrote the treatment, and on Monday pitched it to Brian.

I didn't study film in College. I studied Illustration at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio, but near the end found myself regaining interest in film. I got a job as an animator and story artist at Character Builders (now defunct). Six years ago moved to San Francisco to work at Pixar (I truly love my job).

I've been making short 8mm films and videos since I was a kid, begging my friends and parents to dress up as robots and clowns for my movies. It was kind of cute then, it's not as cute when I'm asking them to do the same at 31.

I like real documentaries. I wish I were making an actual documentary but I don't have the time to devote to something like that. I love the idea of having to find the story within the footage you're stuck with. I like things that appear to be found, or captured naturally, or captured accidently. I guess because it's such a nice contrast to working in animation. I also loved sketch comedy growing up, The Kids in the Hall, Monty Python, The Upright Citizens Brigade. Not sure what all that adds up to.

I gave myself a year and a half to write the first several drafts of the script before I started shooting, but I've been re-writing as I go the whole time. I've shown several early drafts to friends throughout the writing process, but I wish I'd have shown it to even more people. I think that could have only helped make the film better.

I did most of the art direction myself, which served as a nice break from writing and shooting, and gave me a much needed excuse to draw comic covers and do ugly fantasy art paintings. I only storyboarded scenes in the film if they were particularly complex. For the most part I'd just sketch up a few shots in a note book the day before a shoot.

Originally I had planned on having the actors improv more of the scenes until I remembered that none of us were professional improv actors. So most of the movie is pretty close to the script.

Almost every early decision on this film came out of how to use something I had, or covering up something I didn't have. It's a mocumentary because I couldn't afford to light every scene, and I don't know how to record sound well, so I needed the excuse to subtitle if I had to. We bought a cheap camera rather than renting an expensive one because I knew there would be situations when we'd have to shoot at a moments notice and I wanted to be ready at all times. The cast and crew are mostly non-actor friends of mine. Most of them are my age, so I wrote a film about someone who affected that specific generation. That said, if I came up with something I thought was really good in the writing, I left it in and just told myself, "I'll figure out how to do that later." Unfortunately, I'm at that later point now.

My advice to anyone working on a long project like this would be to keep someone you know and admire in the dark about the project the whole time; in other words, make it for someone. It will help you stay interested and it will help remind you that you are telling a story that needs to be properly set up for someone who knows nothing about it. I've kept most of this film a secret from my brother Bill for the past 5 years, and as a result I'm still excited about what he'll think of the film in the end, and that keeps me moving forward. It's easy to lose interest in a project or assume your audience already knows everything they need to know if you're constantly telling everyone about it. It's great to pitch ideas, and see if they're working, but don't do it with EVERY single person you know. The idea of an audience is an abstract one, and it's very helpful to put a concrete face to it.

The film will hopefully be wrapping up by the end of this year. I'm really not sure what to do with it - I'd love to get it in some festivals and see it with a few audiences, but I don't think it needs to be much more than the really great learning process it has been. I started writing a second feature film and will definitely be writing more, but I won't be shooting them. I'm going go back to doing short stuff after this. Nothing over 5 minutes that can't be done in a weekend or two.

I find a lot of professionals artist are afraid to make something on their own because they fear it won't live up to the standard of the projects they contribute to at work. They're afraid when people see what they create without the company behind them. Afraid it will appear that they're the one who's been pretending to help lift the couch. But remember, the projects you work on professionally are made by many, many, extremely talented people, but that doesn't mean each one of them should be able to take the reins and knock it out of the park on their own. Give it a shot, and if you fail - so what? Revel in it, and most importantly, learn from it and do it again. Besides, even if your peers say your project sucks, take comfort in knowing they're still secretly jealous that you made something.