Posted on 05/24/2008 6:07:44 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
(With food costs rising, many are expecting green thumb boom)
A perfect storm is brewing over Wisconsin garden centers, and if the forecast is correct, it will rain Early Girls, Beefy Boys, Mr. Stripeys and other colorfully named vegetables - assuming the weather finally warms up.
The buzz at the start of Memorial Day weekend, traditionally prime time for planting gardens, is that sales of herb and vegetable plants and seeds might outpace last year by as much as 40% to 50%, according to the nation's largest mail-order seed company.
A storm front of high food and gas prices - fed by concern about global warming and carbon footprints, health fears over recent E. coli outbreaks, and the eat-local and organic food movements - could produce the vegetable gardening boom of the decade, national experts predict.
"When food prices are up and the economy's not doing so well, people tend to go back to the land - sometimes in big waves like in the '70s and '80s, and sometimes in a blip like after 9-11," said Charlie Nardozzi, senior horticulturalist for the National Gardening Association. "It makes people feel better to hunker down and grow their own food to cut costs."
High gas prices help boost gardening because less summer travel means more time at home to tend vegetables, Nardozzi said.
You can't get any more local than your own backyard. And if you don't have the yard space for a garden, roof-top gardens and container gardens are an alternative.
Just be realistic, and learn how to tend vegetables before you plant, experts caution.
"Most people aren't good vegetable gardeners," said Bruce Butterfield, research director for the National Gardening Association. "That's a whole skill set that's kind of been forgotten. Vegetables like full sun, rich soil, plenty of water and plenty of tender, loving care."
Last year, 22% of all American households - some 25 million - had vegetable gardens. Americans spent $1.42 billion on plants and seeds, according to a National Gardening Association survey - an average of $58 per household.
Vegetable gardening would have to make a huge leap to approach the pinnacle of 1975, when lines formed at gas pumps and former President Ford encouraged Americans to plant WIN (Whip Inflation Now) Gardens. A record 49% of all households grew vegetables that year, Butterfield said.
Wars prompted other vegetable garden booms: World War I spawned Liberty Gardens, and World War II inspired Victory Gardens, which produced an estimated 40% of all vegetables consumed in the U.S. in 1943.
Back then, fewer distractions competed for gardeners' time; there were no computers, television or soccer schedules, Butterfield said.
Ranks grow
It's not just older people with more free time who are gardening. The ranks of gardeners in their 20s and 30s are growing. Concerns for the environment, such as pesticide contamination and pollution from long-distance shipping, are motivating them, Nardozzi said.
"Our entire yard is pesticide-free organic and we have two rain gardens and a rain barrel," said Teather Fricano of Bayside, 31. "We're vegetarian and we compost. We're into 'green.' "
Fricano wanted to avoid the Memorial Day weekend crush at area garden centers, so she bought her tomato plants last weekend. She and her husband, Brian, also planted cucumbers, beans, peppers for salsa, lettuce, squash, eggplant, broccoli and herbs.
"To know what's in your food is important," Teather Fricano said. "And we use it as a teaching tool with our 2-year-old son. He helps pick tomatoes and beans, and he can eat them right away without having to wash them.
"It teaches him where food comes from, and it also saves us money."
Debbie Mauhar, vice president of the Milwaukee Organic Gardening Club, said she bought half of a Community Supported Agriculture share from an area produce farm for the first time to help support the local economy, and "because I know I can't grow everything I need in my own little yard" in West Allis.
Mauhar, 43, said she'd like to try making pickles this year.
"I grow vegetables for the enjoyment of picking them, and for sustainability," she said. "Being able to grow my own food, I know I can rely on myself in case I have to, though I couldn't necessarily survive just on my own garden."
A sunny lunch hour Thursday drew Teather Fricano's mom, Pam Brown, and grandmother, Charlotte Frazier, to Stein's Garden Center in Mequon to buy tomato plants and petunias.
"We do (tall) buckets of tomatoes because we have a lot of rabbits who like to eat them," said Brown, of Thiensville.
Mary Ann Porter of Mequon has to keep a different garden grazer at bay - the deer - by planting her tomatoes on the roof.
Porter was shopping at Stein for tomato plants with the fewest days to maturity, including a Mr. Stripey heirloom that matures in 56 days, a Sweet Cluster that matures in 67 days, and the Early Girl, ready to pick in 57 days.
"We wait all year for them because there's nothing like tomatoes fresh off the vine," she said.
Tomatoes, hands-down, are the most popular vegetable grown in home gardens, said George Ball, president of the nation's largest mail-order seed company, W. Atlee Burpee & Co. Heirloom and organic vegetable varieties are especially trendy, several seed and garden center executives said.
Tomatoes and peppers of any kind - sweet or hot - are the best "value vegetables" for gardens, said Dick Zondag, president of J.W. Jung Seed Co. in Randolph, which celebrated its 100th anniversary year last year.
One seed of a Big Boy or Super Steak tomato costs a dime, and can produce 30 large tomatoes, Ball said. That's $60 worth of tomatoes, assuming the best store tomatoes cost $3 per pound, he said.
"The value is even greater because a store tomato can't come anywhere close to the flavor of a tomato you grow in your own garden," Ball said.
So far this year, J. W. Jung Seed Co. has seen a 10% to 15% increase in seed sales, as well as in tomato and pepper plant sales, Zondag said.
Ball, of Burpee, said he already has seen the boom in orders from the South.
And...until you know what you're doing, it's really not possible to feed your family completely on your own. There is a learning curve, as there is with any new skill. It might also help to learn to bake bread, milk a cow, sew on a button, mend a sock, keep hens, hunt, fish, gather & glean, too!
Of course, I don't discourage people from learning, but I think this article is a tad optimistic. People actually get disgruntled with me when I tell them they need to read some books and do their homework; I can't tell them how to grow every possible vegetable plant in 10 minutes, LOL!
Self-Promoting Ping!
I’ve planted a small garden this year, mostly for experience in trying to grow veggies, it’s small so if I get a few bundles of carrots and peppers and tomatoes I’ll be happy.
That article does mention that your state is having a unusually cold spring, could that be effecting sales where you work DiWis?
There is more to gardening than growing plants. You have to learn to can and freeze the produce. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a garden after college. I read lots of bitching about the high cost of food and only about 20% bother to lift a finger to grow their own. They want the farmers to give it to them.
You bet! We are weeks behind a usual Spring. I am usually pretty much done with selling annuals and veggie plants after this weekend, but I’m planning on having annuals available for the next two weeks.
Herbs sell all summer long.
Pat yourself on the back! You deserve it, and we can’t reach you!
Actual conversation, and i know you’ve had similar.
Caller: I bought 16 tomato plants from you a month ago. They have brown spots on the leaves.
ME: After the usual questions—what have you fertilized/sprayed/ etc with, and reminding her that it’s really been too cold for tomatoes due to the weather,digging deeper, the woman tells me the plants also have bugs. We determine that they’re aphids. I remind her agaiin that it has been really too cold and she can’t help those leaves. She can spray a fungicide if she wants and she really needs to get rid of the aphids.
Caller: Well, I sprayed them with vinegar to kill the bugs.
Me: Total silence for a moment as I try not to laugh. Ma’am, vinegar is an extremely effective weed killer.
Caller: Oh. Pause. Well, tomatoes aren’t weeds.
Me: Ma’am, we still have plenty of tomato plants and it’s not too late to replant.
Click.
Dang -— I missed this this morning........
Give me an hour (about when I will be back home) and I will call in the troops!!!!!!
Is this good or what? Almost as good as the other one you just pinged me to about going back to the land and the impending oil shortage!
TOO FUNNY!!!!!!!!!
Oh yes, definitely good!!!!!
But I have to get off this box and finish up my “job” so that I can go home and get on my own puter! I also need to get out of this gosh awfully cold office. Man, I’m freezing in here. Good thing it’s warmer out in the bar!!!!
Be Back Later!!!!!!!
I was listening to a radio (NPR) show where the host regularly recommends using strong vinegar as a herbicide, but he adds that white vinegar isn't enough. Where should I look for sufficiently strong vinegar?
Cool! Was there a particular article you wanted me to see or were you just alerting me to it’s presence?
Thanks either way!
White vinegar is for scrubbing your floor! (Kind of a southern joke) If you want real vinegar, you need apple cider. It’s stronger!
Gotta love Globull warming! Thanks to that, I’m still freezing my ass off—wore a sweatshirt all day. Course, I’m not complaining—usually we fight a losing battle to make it until the end of April before we turn the ac on. So far, only open windows. Considered turning the heat back on a couple of mornings! LOL’
Don’t work too hard!
What?! There’s oil somewhere besides the middle east, and all we have to do is drill for it? Shame on you! Heresy, I say!
Do I really need the sarcasm tag?
Just served cucumer salad and grilled zucchini out of the garden. Several peppers are ready to be picked and the onions need to be pulled. In fact, I should log off before hubby catches me FReeping when I should be out there with him hoeing.
I have talked to more people here in East Texas gardening for the first time than ever before.
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