George Ball, chief executive of seed giant W. Atlee Burpee & Co. in Warminster, Pa., says he thinks the veggie-gardening rage is prompted by more than just food costs. His business has seen more baby boomers "entering their prime gardening years," he says. Now, this generation has "a lot of time, the rat race is over, a home that is likely to be their last, and kids past puberty," he says. Burpee's sales of vegetables and herbs are up about 40% this year, twice last year's growth rate. Tomatoes, summer squash, onions, cucumbers, peas and beans continue to be top sellers. "We're running out of things like onions, that you think would never be that hot and raging," he says.In West Columbia, S.C., Sarah Rosenbaum ripped up about a quarter of her family's landscaped yard to install six raised vegetable beds. "You get a pack of seeds for a dollar or two, and you have got a whole bed of organic vegetables for a fraction of what you'd pay at the store. And they taste better."
The project got under way in early March when Ms. Rosenbaum, her partner and his 12-year-old twins started seeds indoors for all their vegetables -- from bok choy to zucchini. "We're out in the garden after work every day, pretty much" she says. "We love doing the work, so it doesn't really feel like work." She hopes the experience will also inspire the twins to eat more vegetables.
To be sure, a new gardener can find himself plunking down a significant amount of money to get started. Ms. Rosenbaum says that the initial investment in her vegetable garden was around $500 for everything from lumber to wire cages. While that may seem high for someone trying to save on food costs, she plans on reusing the materials year after year. "We're even planning to save seeds for next year," she says.
Our tomatoes are coming along nicely, as are the cucumbers. Shouldn't be long now. Basil is thriving, the dill is a bit stressed now that the days are scorching here in Dallas, but the parsley is doing fine. I'm disappointed in the chard, though.
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Also, you can think of the money spent on gardening start-up as "tuition," especially for those who are not expert vegetable gardeners (like me.) Most people are going to take a couple of seasons ascending the learning curve, and education costs money.
Things that are dead-easy, and produce loads (English climate, so roughly like Seattle/Vancouver):
1. Kale - it grows anywhere (I read that it's the only vegetable grown in Greenland). You get loads of green vegetables in January and February.
2. Perennial spinach - Grows through most of the winter, and a plot 3 x 3 feet produces more than a family can eat.
3. Mooli/daikon - As easy to grow as radish, but produces 20 times as much vegetable.
4. Asparagus - Ever so expensive, but it hardly needs cultivation.
blast you and your good gardening weather, Rod! Nothing but rain and more rain 9with the occasional thunder, for good measure). Though our corn is coming up nicely, we'll be licky to get much else. Maybe some peas and beans. If we're really lucky a tomato or two, in 2-3 months. Lettuce tanked, onions are iffy, and the wife's prized watermenlon and cucumbers never came up at all.
But it's good to hear you're garden is producing.
I'm mystified at how badly the eggplant is doing. We live in western Maryland; grow plenty of "normal" stuff like beans, zuchinni, cukes, tomatoes, corn, etc. and decided to try eggplant this year. It hasn't died, but is "failing to thrive" to co-opt a child protective services term. It just sort of sits there.
Strange.
We live in a HOA community so "no-can-do" but I do my best to encourage the natural ground cover (wild woodland strawberries, accidentally seeded gourds from bird feeder droppings) and reclaim the goats rue and garlic mustard noxiously-weeded areas with salvia, mint, lavender and sweet peas (we enjoy the perfume and the bees the nectar). I prune back the stuff that went "native" long before the property was developed (Japanese honeysuckle, choke cherry, climbing roses and bramble canes) to manageable shrubs so that the birds can enjoy the hips and berries in the winter and the hickory, sassafras and tulip trees can grow to their full extent not dragged down by the opportunistic oriental bittersweet or mile-a-minute vines, 'cos who wants to look at this:
http://biology.usgs.gov/luhna/images/fig4_1.gif
in their backyard?
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