[MN] & Millions of Other Americans Expected to Raise Bumper Crop of Backyard Vegetables

Twincities.com ^ | March 10, 2009 | Molly Millett

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"The housewife is back," McCoy said. "Crafting, canning, sewing, gardening — traditional hobbies that used to be 'women's hobbies' — are hot with the younger generation."

Wa-Hoo! I'm SO happy to see this. :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

PING!

[dblshot]

Probably got a surplus of fertilizer after the Franken campaign.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

This is why the “Food Safety Act” is being crafted and proposed by House Democrats. Can’t have people be in charge of their own food supply, now can we?

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Just let them try to stop us. :)

[BigFinn]

Got my garden in. If things get worse I may rip out my lawn and make it bigger.
It’s also a stress reliever. :^)

[BigFinn]

Got my garden in. If things get worse I may rip out my lawn and make it bigger.
It’s also a stress reliever. :^)

[diamond6]

I wish I could raise chickens, but I don’t think we’re zoned for it.

[tacticalogic]

Probably got a surplus of fertilizer after the Franken campaign.

Forget the veggies. Plant acorns. Deep.

[musicbymuzak]

maybe they’re just composting old 0bummer lawn signs

[goodwithagun]

I am buying heirloom seeds this year. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I want hardy plants that I can salvage seed from. Planting seeds from hybrids bought at the store will not yield anything.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Too many deer and other critters hereabouts to have a garden here. The local Mennonite community sells the best produce I have ever seen, making it almost pointless to grow your own.

[staytrue]

So people are spending 10 dollars and getting 650 dollars in value.

That is 600 dollars in taxable income by my calculation.

Plus, these people may be violating minimum wage laws, they are not withholding social security and medicare. Furthermore, they may be violating OSHA and enviromental laws.

There is no way in hell this is going to be legal under a democrat congress and president.

All the vegetables grown must be confiscated and put into a common pool where the hungry and poor need to be fed first.

[muawiyah]

Here's one of the reasons why everybody should consider growing a garden ~ even a small indoor one ~ we've got one whopper of a world busting drought coming this year. Makes 1930/35 look mild. It's more on the order of the things many of our ancestors faced in the 1800s!

There's a February 15, 2009 brief on the implications of this drought pattern at: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.infiniteunknown.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/countries_by_agricultural_output1.png&imgrefurl=http://www.infiniteunknown.net/tag/kenya/&usg=__QaVour7cLGEU2Z-kewsqWSDJl_U=&h=286&w=550&sz=83&hl=en&start=68&um=1&tbnid=iAvJalXdIiM3nM:&tbnh=69&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddrought%2Bconditions%2Bmexico%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D54%26um%3D1<P>

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/images/2009/Feb/Countries_by_agricultural_output%5B1%5D-747806.gif

[JustaDumbBlonde]

I have been kinda quizzing folks in my area that are putting in gardens to determine their reasons for doing so. In the group aged 65 or older, they've always done it and don't know any other way. In the younger folks, I've been quite surprised that cost is not the driving force, it is the food contamination stories that got them fired-up.

In the above article the mother says it is so nice to want a tomato and go out back and pick one, which of course is true. What lots of folks don't take into account in the further savings of not hopping into the car and driving to the market/store to buy a tomato.

Most of us know how many times we've gone to purchase a tomatoe, potatoes, carrots or that other side dish for supper that night. How many times have we run to the market to put together that salad? Not to mention how many times we will buy something else that we would not have had we not gone to get the lettuce. The savings really add up.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Victory Gardens after an economic Pearl Harbor....

[Gabz]

Garden PING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(now to read :))

[AD from SpringBay]

Imagine if the vegetable gardens were treated like wages and the gardeners had to turn in 35-60% of their crops to the government, free of charge for those who did not grow their own.

[Gabz]

Don’t be giving them anymore bright ideas :)

[KarlInOhio]

News from the future:

This year's rate of farm foreclosures, second only to the Great Depression, was caused by millions of suburbanites growing their own food in their gardens. Obama promises a bailout and Congress outlaws growing more than ten square feet of vegetables without applying for a permit from the Department of Agriculture. "People's gardening affect the interstate commerce of orange baseballs called tomatoes, thus limitations on individual gardens is constitutional."