Ever since her childhood on a Niagara farm, Debi has dug in the dirt to find resilience. But when her husband, Peter, was diagnosed with cancer in November, it was too late in the season to seek solace in her garden. With idle hands and a fearful mind, she sought something to sustain her through the months ahead. She soon came across Victory Gardens - the vegetable gardens cultivated during the world wars that sustained so many.
During an anxious winter, she researched, drew plans, and ordered seeds. In spring, with Peter in remission, her garden thrived and life got back on track. But when Peter's cancer returned like a killing frost, the garden was a reminder that everything must come to an end.
A Victory Garden for Trying Times is a personal journey of love, loss, and healing through the natural cycles of the earth.
"A compelling and intimate reflection on love and grief and ordinary things that comfort and sustain us - like getting your hands dirty. A timeless journey for anyone who finds beauty in the light that filters through a canopy of trees or the damp sweet smell of freshly turned earth."
Alison Smith, award-winning journalist
"A moving recounting of love and loss and the attempt to find solace though a 'Victory' garden. The name is sadly ironic at first, and then becomes a form consolation in the end. I read the second half of this heartbreaking memoir in one sustained session because I needed to know the details of how the story ended. After setting it down, I thought about the book all evening and over breakfast the
Antanas Sileika, author of Buying on Time
"Victory Garden for Trying Times is about gardening the way Izaac Walton's The Compleat Angler is about fishing or Herman Melville's Moby Dick is about whaling. Much of this story is about cloves and carrots and tomatoes and weeds and such. But it's also a touching love story that will break your heart. The Victory Garden of the title refers to vegetable patches ordinary people cultivated in warti
