Re: home food gardening trends

**Jeff Ball j*@usol.com**

I can't imagine how the vegetable seed side of the seed business can  
not be in dire condition.  I even question why my own garden is so  
big.  I think two things have happened to cause veggie growing to  
collapse.  First the growth of organic vegetables available in  
grocery stores.  You can now even get fruit and vegetables out of  
season and still organic.  Then the growth of farmer's markets.   
There are six within driving range of my house and three of them are  
very large and complete in terms of choice; they all have very fair  
prices.  We eat a lot of vegetables but not much is from our garden;  
most is from the vegetable stands and farmer's market especially as  
the summer progresses.  We will always grow tomatoes and I suspect  
the growing of tomatoes has not made much of a dip down.

Jeff Ball
jeffball@usol.com
810-724-8581
Check out my daily blog at www.gardeneryardener.blogspot.com
Check out my extensive web site at www.yardener.com

On Jul 5, 2006, at 12:19 PM, Roger Doiron wrote:

Are the home-grown food habits of farmers indicative of a larger  
gardening
trend? If so, then the recently published 2005 statistics from the  
USDA show
home-gardening at its lowest point (per capita) in US history, down  
15% from
2004.

The data is available here:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/CPIFoodAndExpenditures/Data/table2.htm

As garden writers and media specialists, how do we draw attention to the
endangered species known as the family vegetable patch?

How low does the home gardening data have to go before it becomes a news
story and not a garden story?

Or, am I just out of touch?  I'd love to have someone tell me that  
home food
production is in a better state than I can see in my area or in the USDA
stats.

Thanks,

Roger

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