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.
Funny! Some of us never went far!
ping
I was heavy into Mother Earth in the 70’s.....wood stove, solar collectors, garden, compost making etc.
The tone of various recent threads seems to reflect back to those days as gas prices rise and alternatives are being explored again.
I was a little suprised to find such a good MEN website. I passed it on because it might actually be helpful to a new generation
I was born in 64. Early 70’s—hmmm. About then I thought everyone had an outhouse, washed clothes in one of those wringer on top type of washers with the scrub board on one side, bathed in the creek or in a galvanized wash tub when there was enough water in the well, had a garden, kept cows and pigs and chickens....
Oh, wait! We were dirt poor and I was raised on a farm! Do I want to repeat that? Not really. I like hot running water and flush toilets, shrink wrapped chicken that didn’t used to be my pet hen. What I really like is convenience. Can I live without it? Sure. Do I want to? Not on your life.
The surviving difference will be the ones who know how to do things like that. Doesn’t matter so much if you are doing it right now, as long as the knowledge is there.
You are absolutely right—a couple editions of that magazine could mean the difference between life and death for some of the younger generation. Most of them don’t have a clue.
Been growing veggies for 30 years. Ah yes..the annual canning event. Haven’t bought a tomato, green bean, lettuce, carrot, potato, pepper, brussel sprout, mushroom, since Jimmuh Cartel was in office. And I live on a suburbian lot. One can accomplish much in your backyard.
And Michigan is still dealing with frost advisories.
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