Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Many people are raising their own food to save

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Many people are raising their own food to save
  • Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:07:05 -0700


Many people are raising their own food to save
By BARRY SHLACHTER
barry@star-telegram.com
Mon, Mar. 16, 2009
http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/1259373.html

Unfazed by losing her vegetable crop to a freeze last year, Debbie McNeill
is more than just gearing up.

The 49-year-old Haslet housewife is upping the stakes, putting down twice
as many tomato, onion and jalapeño plants in a 15-by-15-foot raised
garden at her mother’s home "because it’s fun and because of the
economy."

McNeill is not alone.

>From seed producers and greenhouse growers to retailers, all are reporting
booming sales. All attribute it largely to family financial issues.

"This happens every time we have a downturn in the economy," said Rick
Archie, the third-generation owner of Archie’s Gardenland on the west
side of Fort Worth, founded during in 1934. He estimates that vegetable
plant sales have increased 20 to 25 percent so far this year.

At Russell Feed in Haltom City, manager Carl Cathey reports that his
vegetable plant sales have soared 50 to 60 percent this year.

"Of course, a lot of it are replacements for people who got frosted out and
came back for more," Cathey conceded. "But all in all, people seem just
hungry to grow vegetables. Seeds are just now starting to move, but
they’re up about 20 percent in the last couple of weeks."

Seed companies recognized the market demand.

Park Seeds of South Carolina rushed out multiseed packets called Victory
Garden, lifting the name from successful federal programs during World Wars
I and II that boosted home garden production.

W. Atlee Burpee Co., the Pennsylvania-based pioneer in the mail-order seed
business, which also supplies major chains, matched Park Seeds with Money
Garden. The latter is also priced at $9.95 for a packet that will grow six
vegetables.

If weather doesn’t get in the way, Burpee estimates that the modest
investment could yield an edible bounty that would have cost $650 at a
supermarket.

What it means

George Ball, Burpee’s chairman, is cautious about the success of Money
Garden, telling the Star-Telegram that past consumer behavior tells him
that some backyard gardeners, or wannabes, will pass up the packet if it
includes a single veggie he or she does not eat. Money Garden includes
seeds for tomatoes, red peppers, Bibb lettuce, carrots, snap peas and
beans, while Park’s Victory Garden offers yellow squash, red-tipped
lettuce, baby cucumbers, tomatoes, beans and green peppers.

But sales of vegetable seeds generally at Burpee "are exploding across the
board," Ball said.

During the last week of February, orders were up about 25 percent over the
same period in 2008, far more than the seed producer expected.

"Last year, we saw increases of 15 to 20 percent because of the
[salmonella] food scare over tomatoes and peppers," he said. "And we
thought we’d see a back-off, not an uptick.

"We never anticipated the mortgage crisis and the effect on people’s
401(k) retirement accounts. And we haven’t seen produce prices back down
when fuel prices dropped last fall," Ball said, rattling off reasons why
more folks might be planting vegetables.

Newfound interest

The vast majority of calls in recent weeks to the master gardener hot line
at the Tarrant County Horticulture Office of the Texas’ AgriLIFE
Extension service have been about vegetable gardening, many from
first-timers, extension agent Steve Chaney said. The same was true at two
recent home and garden shows, he said.

A lot of people are cutting back on entertainment spending and skipping a
movie to plant a garden together as a relatively inexpensive family
activity, Chaney said. Aside from the pride of production, the homegrown
vegetables will likely taste better because they are picked after naturally
ripening, unlike some store-bought varieties bred for long-transit times
and often harvested early, then ripened with gas, he said.

Tricky weather

Whether the new wave of backyard sodbusters saves any money depends on many
factors, including a lucky break from Texas’ tricky weather.

But residents can better the odds by trying the old-fashioned way, Chaney
says, starting with relatively cheap seed packets rather than young
vegetable plants sold in small pots.

Even certified master gardeners like Frank Durda of Fort Worth, a retired
Texas Department of Transportation engineer, can suffer at the hands of the
fickle weather gods.

In 2007, he produced enough backyard tomatoes to can 68 pints worth.

Last year?

"Zero," he said.

"The heavens opened and drowned everything."

North Texas is not traditionally expected to be safe from a freeze until
after March 20.

Still, enough people are willing to remove some of the uncertainty that
they’ve kept Johnny and Cindy Jordan hopping.

The Jordans operate wholesale supplier Baby’s Green House in the tiny
Parker County community of Dennis, where they produce small pots of
vegetable starter plants: 48 varieties of tomato and 26 types of pepper,
not to mention their herbs, squash, cucumber and eggplants.

Unlike GM and Chrysler, production at Baby’s is going full bore during a
lengthened workday.

"We’ve got pots filling up inside the greenhouse, on the floor, busting
out the door," Johnny Jordan said. "We can’t put them outside because you
never know the temperature."

Baby’s sales are up 50 percent over last year, "and if we had 50 percent
more plants, we’d sell them out, too."

"We kind of anticipated it being a bigger year; all signs were set that
way," he said. "But it’s maddening. People who had never gardened before
are into it. I would say it’s the economy; everyone’s planting a garden
in. I’ve seen people in Lewisville and Benbrook piling up half their
yards with plants when I make deliveries.

"We’re keeping up with demand so far. But in a couple of weeks, it’s
going to be hard."

How much can you save?

Tomatoes One plant can yield 40 to 50 medium to large fruit per season.
With fertilizer and other costs factored in, that $3 or $4 packet of 25
seeds could easily produce $125 to $250 worth of tomatoes or more,
according to W. Atlee Burpee & Co.

Red bell pepper A plant can produce an average of 15 peppers that would
cost about $1.50 each in a supermarket, or $22.50 — or $225.00 from a
10-seed packet costing $3, Burpee said.

Hint: Some stores, like Russell Feed, sell bulk seeds by the scoop, which
works out cheaper than packets, but varieties are limited.




  • [Livingontheland] Many people are raising their own food to save, Tradingpost, 03/17/2009

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page