Posted on 02/22/2008 8:32:03 AM PST by Gabz
Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach are battling back by growing their own food.
Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies. Although the 2008 planting season is still largely in the planning stages, it appears vegetable seed sales will be up significantly from year-ago figures, said Barb Melera, president of D. Landreth Seed Co., in New Freedom, Pa.
"I just came back from the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta and we sold three- to four times the amount of seed packets we did the previous year," Melera said. "This is the first time I've ever heard people say 'I can grow this more cheaply than I can buy it in the supermarket.' That's a 180-degree turn from the norm."
Roger Doiron, a gardener and fresh food advocate from Scarborough, Maine, said he turned $85 worth of seeds into more than six months of vegetables for his family of five.
"We're closing in on mid-February and we still have several quarts of tomato sauce, bags of mixed vegetables and ice-cube trays of pesto in the freezer; 20 heads of garlic, a five-gallon crock of sauerkraut, more homegrown hot pepper sauce than one family could comfortably eat in a year and three sorts of squash, which we make into soups, stews and bread," he said.
As founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International, a nonprofit group promoting home gardening and healthier food, Doiron pays close attention to pocketbook issues. Food prices, gasoline prices and oil prices are all up sharply compared to a year ago, making it more challenging to put a meal on the table, Doiron said.
"I see home gardens as a way of broadening and democratizing the local foods revolution which until now has been more of an upper-class phenomenon," he said by e-mail. "Home gardening allows people to have their fresh, organic salad greens and pay for them, too."
At $3.80 a gallon, whole milk cost more through November of last year than the $2.99 average for unleaded gas, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and AAA.
Egg prices were 19.5 percent higher in June of 2007 than they were the previous June, the U.S. Department of Labor said. Over that same period, the cost of whole milk rose 13.3 percent, fresh chicken was up 10 percent, apples 11.7 percent, dried beans 11.5 percent and white bread 9.6 percent.
And the worst may be yet to come. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said retail prices would continue to climb as more agricultural crops, primarily corn, are processed into biofuels. Greater demand from India and China also are contributing to what likely will be long-term food cost increases, the agency said.
Those conditions are ripe for an increase in gardening, said Rose Hayden-Smith, a garden educator and historian with the University of California-Davis.
"You always see an uptick in gardening activity in keeping with economic conditions — consumer-driven waves that emulate recession and inflation-driven economies," Hayden-Smith said.
Hayden-Smith compares the current period of market uncertainty with that of the early- to mid-20th Century when the concept of "victory gardens" became popular in the U.S, Canada and Europe.
"A lot of companies during the world wars and the Great Depression era encouraged vegetable gardening as a way of addressing layoffs, reduced wages and such," she said in a telephone interview. "Some companies, like U.S. Steel, made gardens available at the workplace. Railroads provided easements they'd rent to employees and others for gardening."
During World War II, gardens were pitched as an important part of the war effort — by war's end, the victory gardens were turning out 40 percent of the nation's produce, freeing up big farms to supply the troops. And they were important at home in a time of rising food prices and rationing, the Kitchen Gardeners' Doiron said.
"Home gardens made the difference between people being well fed and going to bed hungry," he said, adding that the gardens increased consumption of fruits and vegetables to historic highs.
Now, as then, gardeners are getting serious about what they're planting; the gardeners who Melera met at the recent trade show were not just interested in flowers or hobby plants.
"They came to me with things like, 'How can I maximize what I put into a small plot?'" she said. "They're beginning to think in the old-fashioned way about vegetable gardening not just being there for entertainment purposes. They need it to yield stuff."
Jim Gerritsen, co-owner of WoodPrairie Farm, a certified organic, family-run operation near Bridgewater, Maine, said his sales are up.
"This year, we're getting more questions tied into self-reliance," he said. "We're hearing new gardens are being prepared for the first time, former gardeners are coming back to the garden and existing gardens are being enlarged."
Weekly Gardening PING!!!!!!!!!
I can’t wait for spring! Bring it on.
I’ve started a few crops, lettuce, peas, tomatoes. It’s bit early I guess, for around here but I can start more in a couple more weeks. That way, if we get an early spring, I’m ready, and if not, the second planting will be ready just in time.
I keep sayign I’m going to, but I have to be honest -— I haven’t started a danged thing yet.
Peas and lettuce I will start directly outside, probably in about 2 weeks. The weather has just been too weird here.
But like you, I can’t wait for spring, I’m tired of wet and cold..........although I will be thankful for all the wet later on down the road.
I found some lettuce one spring when the snow melted. The snow prevented it from freezing and when it melted it just kept on growing. It was nice to have some VERY early lettuce, so I know they can handle the cool weather.
I also know peas can handle the cold fairly well and they grow just fine in early spring.
However, what I found is that the seeds take FOREVER to germinate in the cold soil. So instead of planting the seeds when the soil can be worked, I plant the plants and get about a month’s worth of waiting past. I also do plant some seeds about that time, but the plants have such a head start that I get continuous crops by the time the seeds start producing. Then the older first plants, if they’re done, can get pulled up and make room for more warm weather crops like tomatoes and zucchini.
My cabbage seedlings came up Wednesday! I’m so psyched.
This year I’m going to plant mostly open-pollinated. I just keep turning the seed packets over in my hands, like little gold pieces, WAITING FOR SPRING.
To be honest, I never thought to start peas indoors. Probably because I was always told to start them outdoors around St. Patrick’s Day (when I lived in Delaware, now I do it earlier) also, I plant a lot of them.
Yippee on your cabbage!!!!!!
You start PEAS indoors? And it works??? I've got trays and dirt (I understand the hoity-toity gardeners call it "soil") out in the garage now. Time to set it up!
Sounds good, but have y’all checked the price of fertilizer lately? It’s doubled, at least. Seeds have gone up too. OTOH, people who don’t garden are in for an even bigger shock. We’ve lived a long time with reasonable food prices. I think we’re about to see that come to a crashing halt.
Using food for fuel is a stupid idea. Sure, it’s renewable, but think about the repercussions. For once, the farmer is getting a decent price for corn and soybeans. Follow that path a little farther. Deisel is out of sight. Feed is made of protein—gained from corn and soybeans. The farmer’s costs, as always, keep going up. End result—food is going to cost more. Add the cost of fuel to that...
Any of y’all see that article last week about Hatians eating mud pies? Sad, so sad.
It takes about a week or so for them to germinate indoors. You can probably save about two weeks at least.
I start them in peat pots, though. I don’t think that they tend to transplant very well otherwise and the peat pots have less disturbance of the roots.
The advantage to starting them indoors that is that otherwise, the plants are just starting to produce as the hot weather sets in and don’t do so well.
Anyway, that works for us since it doesn’t really warm up until mid April at the earliest, and usually later, here in NY. Stuff like tomatoes can’t go in until after a the middle of May if the long range forecast looks good. Otherwise, it’s Memorial Day.
I’ve done it before. You can only try and it’ll only cost a few seeds if it doesn’t work out.
I use the peat pots I got at Wal-Mart. The square ones come in flats of 8 connected together; 2x4. I split them lengthwise so they’re 4 long and I just dug a trench and put the strip in. They were spaced perfectly.
like little gold pieces, WAITING FOR SPRING.
I know what you mean! The greenhouse is getting under way. We moved the first set of cole crops outside Mon to make room for other babies. The rooted cuttings of wave petunias and callibrachoas came in and they’re snug in their hanging baskets. I’ve got to sow flowers and herbs and another set of cole crops and tomatoes and peppers.
The weather here is DREARY! Drizzling rain and cold this am, warming up now—mid 50’s. It’s so nice to be working out in the greenhouse.
I go to our friends who have lots of rabbits, and some other animals. They have quite a manure pile. Cheapest fertilizer around. Just the cost of the gas to go get it.
I like to go to the supermarket and get the plastic buckets from the bakery dept. Their frostings and fillings come in them and they usually just throw the buckets out otherwise, so if you ask, they’ll give them to you. They do need to be cleaned out, though.
Since they are food grade containers, there’s no problem putting fresh veggies in them while you’re picking.
They’re great for hauling around the garden for weeding, using for watering, collecting crops, and the old dirty ones for hauling the manure I get.
You are preaching to the choir here, I know about the costs...........
Hubby is now seriously considering a chicken coop after the sticker shock he got hit with buying eggs yesterday. $2.09 a dozen for just plain eggs, nothing fancy or anything. And $3.75 a gallon for milk -— but no talk of a cow or goats :)
“Weekly Gardening PING!!!!!!!!!”
Hey! Can I get on that list?
Wait. I thought the CPI (Consumer Price Index) says that things are only going up 3%?
thanks for the tips, I may just try that. I’ve got my rows ready for the peas and beans out back.....thank goodness for black plastic mulch!
I bet it is!!!!!
It's raining and nasty here and only 40..........SIGH
quite a manure pile. Cheapest fertilizer around
You should see the looks on people’s faces when you tell them that “organic” means poop was used as fert! No, no, no. Organic means no pesticides. Oookkkaaayyy.
I hear you about the buckets. Not sure what my guys do with them, but good luck finding one around here! I even got a bright blue one to mop with—can I find it? LOL
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