High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In cryptanalysis, gardening was a term used at Bletchley Park, England, during World War II for schemes to entice the Germans to include known plaintext, which the British called "cribs," in their encrypted messages. This term presumably came from RAF minelaying missions, or “gardening” sorties, so called because sectors of the coastal waters around Europe were given code-names based on fruits and vegetables. The technique is claimed to have been most effective against messages produced by the German Navy`s Enigma machines.