[GJM] Fw: [globalnetnews-summary] Banking on Gardening

[mary rose]

A peek at what others are doing.

mr.

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   "George C. Ball Jr., owner of the W. Atlee Burpee Company, said sales
of vegetable and herb seeds and plants are up by 40 percent over last
year, double the annual growth for the last five years... Mr. Ball
offers half a dozen reasons for the phenomenon, some of which have
been building for the last few years, like taste, health and food
safety, plus concern, especially among young people, about global
warming. But, Mr. Ball said, "The big one is the price spike." The striking
rise in the cost of staples like bread and milk has been accompanied
by increases in the price of fruits and vegetables."

Banking on Gardening
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/dining/11garden.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
By MARIAN BURROS
Published: June 11, 2008

CASSANDRA FEELEY prefers organic ingredients, especially for her
baby, but she finds it hard to manage on her husband's salary as an
Army sergeant. So this year she did something she has wanted to do
for a long time: she planted vegetables in her yard to save money.

"One organic cucumber is $3 and I can produce it for pennies," she said.

For her first garden, Ms. Feeley has gone whole hog, hand-tilling a
quarter acre in the backyard of her house near the Fort Campbell Army
base in Kentucky. She has put in 15 tomato plants, five rows of corn,
potatoes, cucumbers, squash, okra, peas, watermelon, green beans. An
old barn on the property has been converted to a chicken coop, its
residents arriving next month; the goats will be arriving next year.

"I spent $100 on it and I know I will save at least $75 a month on
food," she said.

She is one of the growing number of Americans who, driven by higher
grocery costs and a stumbling economy, have taken up vegetable
gardening for the first time. Others have increased the size of their
existing gardens.

Seed companies and garden shops say that not since the rampant
inflation of the 1970s has there been such an uptick in interest in
growing food at home. Space in community gardens across the country
has been sold out for several months. In Austin, Tex., some of the
gardens have a three-year waiting list.

George C. Ball Jr., owner of the W. Atlee Burpee Company, said sales
of vegetable and herb seeds and plants are up by 40 percent over last
year, double the annual growth for the last five years. "You don't
see this kind of thing but once in a career," he said. Mr. Ball
offers half a dozen reasons for the phenomenon, some of which have
been building for the last few years, like taste, health and food
safety, plus concern, especially among young people, about global
warming.

But, Mr. Ball said, "The big one is the price spike." The striking
rise in the cost of staples like bread and milk has been accompanied
by increases in the price of fruits and vegetables.

"Food prices have spiked because of fuel prices and they redounded to
the benefit of the garden," Mr. Ball said. "People are driving less,
taking fewer vacations, so there is more time to garden."

Each spring for the last five years, the Garden Writers Association
has had TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, a polling firm, conduct a
national consumer telephone survey asking gardeners what makes up the
greatest share of their garden budgets. "The historic priorities are
lawns, annuals, perennials, then vegetables, followed by trees and
shrubs," said Robert LaGasse, executive director of the association.
This year, vegetables went from fourth place to second, which Mr.
LaGasse called "an enormous attitude shift."

People like Rita Gartin of Ames, Iowa, are part of that shift. Last
year she kept a small garden. This year it has tripled in size into a
five-by-seven-foot plot because, Ms. Gartin said, "The cost of
everything is going up and I was looking to lose a few pounds, too;
so it's a win-win situation all around."

Ms. Gartin, who fits gardening into her 12-hour workday as an
interior designer and property manager, is not intimidated by the 20
kinds of vegetables she has planted: she was raised on a farm with a
giant garden. A fence has been erected to keep the deer and people
out, and it's where the pole beans and snap peas are already climbing.

She is ready to take a stab at canning, but reserves the right to
freeze everything instead, she said.

"I probably spent maybe $50 for everything and that's less than a
week's cost of groceries or the price of a gym," she said.

Seed companies and garden centers say they didn't see the rush
coming. There wasn't any buildup last year, said Barbara Melera, the
co-owner of the D. Landreth Seed Company in New Freedom, Pa., who
takes the pulse of gardeners at the 13 garden shows she attends
around the country each year.

"We pack for all the shows and bring 16 different beans, 10 packets
for each kind," Ms. Melera said. In earlier years, by the time the
shows end in March, she said, "we are lucky if we have sold two of
the 10 packets."

"This year," she said, "we sold out the first show and literally sold
hundreds. We never sell any corn; this year we sold out of corn by
the end of the season. We saw the same thing in the mail order
business."

She said the greatest demand was for what she calls "survival
vegetables": peas, beans, corn, beets, carrots, broccoli, kale,
spinach and the lettuces. "It was so different from what it has been
in prior years," she added.

* Randy Martell, one of the owners of the Garden Factory in
Rochester, says it isn't just vegetables. "The potted fruit trees
were sold out by the first week of May," he said. "Blueberries,
raspberries and grapes are sold out. I think those sales have
doubled. Overall sales are up about 30 percent."

Dottie Wright, greenhouse manager at one of the Dammann's Lawn,
Garden and Landscaping Centers in Indianapolis, said she talks to
people every day who are starting their first vegetable garden. "If
they don't have a yard they try containers for tomatoes and herbs. We
can't keep the herbs in this year."

Thrilled as gardening experts are about this phenomenon, they know
that many first timers don't have any idea how much sweat equity is
involved.

"Many people I sold seeds to have never gardened before," Ms. Melera
said, "and we have to find a way to educate them so the experience is
successful. They have got to be taught."

Mr. Ball of Burpee knows some of the new gardeners won't stick with
gardening beyond the first year. "Some people can't get with the idea
of digging a hole; getting buggy, sticky and hot," he said.
"Gardening is an active hobby; it's a commitment."

Doreen G. Howard, a former garden editor for Woman's Day and now a
writer for The American Gardener, is one of the committed. She has
had a vegetable garden for most of the last 25 years. This year she
has quadrupled the size of her vegetable plot in Roscoe, Ill.,
because of the economy and because she thinks the quality of
store-bought produce has deteriorated. Once vegetables were just 5
percent of her garden; now they are 20 percent.

"Food prices have gotten to the point where we are seeing the
difference," she said. "It's pushing our budget and we are a
two-income family. It was never a concern before." Ms. Howard said
her grocery bill for two went from $100 a week to $140 a week this
year.

She has chosen many vegetables that freeze well, investing in a
secondhand freezer to store the bounty. She plans to dry the herbs
that grow on the back porch next to boxes of mesclun, and to make
pickles from the cucumbers and raisins from the grapes - her newest
addition. And she is looking forward to a cellar full of Peruvian
blue potatoes.

Some of Ms. Howard's increased harvest will also go to food pantries
through an organization called Plant a Row for the Hungry, which
encourages gardeners to plant extra vegetables to share with the poor.

"I'm hoping to take $20 a week off my grocery bill," she said. This
is in the low range, according to Mr. Ball, who says a $100
investment will produce $1,000 to $1,700 worth of vegetables.

Ms. Gartin, now in her second year, says gardening is worth the effort.

"I got soft calluses from hoeing and digging," she said, adding
cheerfully, "but my fingernails are still pretty - long and not
chipped. I probably spent 30 hours putting the garden in, and when
I'd come into the house I'd be covered in sweat. But now it's pretty
easy because of all the rain we've had."

And the vegetables, she said, are "awesome." "It's a totally
different flavor from what you buy in the store. It's exciting to go
out and pick the fruits of your labor."