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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Dollars from dirt: Economy spurs home garden boom
  • Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:42:48 -0700



Dollars from dirt: Economy spurs home garden boom
http://www.azdailysun.com/articles/2009/03/16/news/national/20090316_us_ne_1

92773.txt
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press Writer
Monday, March 16, 2009

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- With the recession in full swing, many Americans are
returning to their roots -- literally -- cultivating vegetables in their
backyards to squeeze every penny out of their food budget.

Industry surveys show double-digit growth in the number of home gardeners
this year and mail-order companies report such a tremendous demand that
some have run out of seeds for basic vegetables such as onions, tomatoes
and peppers. "People's home grocery budget got absolutely shredded and now
we've seen just this dramatic increase in the demand for our vegetable
seeds. We're selling out," said George Ball, CEO of Burpee Seeds, the
largest mail-order seed company in the U.S. "I've never seen anything like
it."

Gardening advocates, who have long struggled to get America grubby, have
dubbed the newly planted tracts "recession gardens" and hope to shape the
interest into a movement similar to the victory gardens of World War II.

Those gardens, modeled after a White House patch planted by Eleanor
Roosevelt in 1943, were intended to inspire self-sufficiency, and at their
peak supplied 40 percent of the nation's fresh produce, said Roger Doiron,
founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International.

Doiron and several colleagues are petitioning President Obama to plant a
similar garden at the White House as part of his call for a responsible,
eco-friendly economic turnaround. Proponents have collected 75,000
signatures on an online petition.

"It's really part of our history and it's part of the White House's
history," Doiron said. "When I found out why it had been done over the
course of history and I looked at where we are now, it makes sense again."

But for many Americans, the appeal of backyard gardening isn't in its
history -- it's in the savings.

The National Gardening Association estimates that a well-maintained
vegetable garden yields a $500 average return per year. A study by Burpee
Seeds claims that $50 spent on gardening supplies can multiply into $1,250
worth of produce annually.

Doiron spent nine months weighing and recording each vegetable he pulled
from his 1,600-square-foot garden outside Portland, Maine. After counting
the final winter leaves of Belgian endive, he found he had saved about
$2,150 by growing produce for his family of five instead of buying it.

Adriana Martinez, an accountant who reduced her grocery bill to $40 a week
by gardening, said there's peace of mind in knowing where her food comes
from. And she said the effort has fostered a sense of community through a
neighborhood veggie co-op.

"We're helping to feed each other and what better time than now?" Martinez
said.

A new report by the National Gardening Association predicts a 19 percent
increase in home gardening in 2009, based on spring seed sales data and a
telephone survey. One-fifth of respondents said they planned to start a
food garden this year and more than half said they already were gardening
to save on groceries.

Community gardens nationwide are also seeing a surge of interest. The
waiting list at the 312-plot Long Beach Community Garden has nearly
quadrupled -- and no one is leaving, said Lonnie Brundage, who runs the
garden's membership list.

"They're growing for themselves, but you figure if they can use our
community garden year-round they can save $2,000 or $3,000 or $4,000 a
year," she said. "It doesn't take a lot for it to add up."

Seed companies say this renaissance has rescued their vegetable business
after years of drooping sales. Orders for vegetable seeds have skyrocketed,
while orders for ornamental flowers are flat or down, said Richard
Chamberlin, president of Harris Seeds in Rochester, N.Y.

Business there has increased 40 percent in the last year, with the most
growth among vegetables such as peppers, tomatoes and kitchen herbs that
can thrive in small urban plots or patio containers, he said. Harris Seeds
recently had to reorder pepper and tomato seeds.

"I think if things were fine, you wouldn't see people doing this. They're
just too busy," Chamberlin said. "Gardening for most Americans was a dirty
word because it meant work and nobody wanted more work -- but that's
changed."

Harris Seed's Web site now gets 40,000 hits a day.

Among larger companies, Burpee saw a 20 percent spike in sales in the last
year and started marketing a kit for first-time gardeners called "The Money
Garden." It has sold 15,000 in about two months, said Ball.

A Web-based retailer called MasterGardening.com is selling similar
packages, and Park Seed of Greenwood, S.C., is marketing a "Garden for
Victory Seed Collection." Slogan: "Win the war in your own backyard against
high supermarket prices and nonlocal produce!"

Cultivators with years of experience worry that home gardeners lured by
promises of big savings will burn out when they see the amount of labor
required to get dollars from their dirt. The average gardener spends nearly
five hours a week grubbing in the dirt and often contends with failure
early on, said Bruce Butterfield, a spokesman for The National Gardening
Association.

"The one thing you don't factor into it is the cost of your time and your
labor," he said.

"But even if it's just a couple of tomato plants in a pot, that's worth the
price of admission."

On the Net:

Kitchen Gardeners: http://www.kitchengardeners.org/

National Gardening Assn: http://www.garden.org/home

Burpee Seeds: http://www.burpee.com/

MasterGardening: http://mastergardening.com/

Harris Seeds: http://www.harrisseeds.com/




  • [Livingontheland] Dollars from dirt: Economy spurs home garden boom, Tradingpost, 03/17/2009

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