Re: Decline in Gardening

**Miranda Smith m*@tagoresmith.com**

Similar to the optimists on the list, I see changes but don't believe 
that people are going to stop gardening any time soon. My work brings me 
into contact with young or not-so-young beginning farmers, of course, so 
I'll begin by talking about my impressions of them and their needs.

Farming students have changed radically in the last decade. Their 
numbers are fewer now, but it's as if they've been pre-weeded out. It 
used to be that only one out of 10 or so was capable of or truly 
interested in farming; these days, about seven out of ten can and do 
become ag professionals of some sort.

But even among the serious students, there have been changes. It used to 
be that a good number of them believed that farming was a refuge from 
the "commercial, materialistic" world when, of course, it's all about 
being commercially viable in a highly competitive field. Today, many 
more of them realize this--business planning and management courses top 
the list of requested subjects in polls that the New England Small Farm 
Institute has taken over the last five years. When the "old dogs" of the 
field discuss this, they use the term "professionalizing" to describe 
what's happened to the students and their interests in the last decade 
or so.

And--please permit a little horn-blowing--I just finished a book for 
beginning farm mentors titled, "The On-Farm Mentor's Guide--Practical 
Approaches to Teaching on the Farm." The pre-publication version has 
attracted a lot of attention from the people who've seen it and advance 
orders are coming in quickly, even from institutions that are perceived 
of as being antagonistic towards small and/or organic farmers. This 
leads me to believe that farming, and farming education, is changing, 
but that the changes are for the better.

As for gardening and the growth or decline of such--it has to be a 
function of location. I know it's much more difficult to sell garden 
books--woe to all of us--but in my neighborhood in central Florida, 
everyone with a spot of ground gardens. However, Floridians may be a 
self-selected lot anyway. You have to want to live in a summer 
greenhouse to be a year-round resident, and it's impossible to be here 
without being aware of the plant life. People are keen gardeners and 
love talking about it and looking at everyone else's garden and, 
especially if they are transplants, marveling at the "weeds" --Such 
things as volunteer asparagus ferns, opuntas, and  sansevieria boggle 
the mind when you first enounter them in a bed you planted to broccoli.

But the Florida experience aside, my observations are that younger 
people are:

1.) very concerned about the food they are eating and lacking faith in 
the "gummit" to safe-guard anything about it, from supply to safety;

2.) totally pushed for time and money and very interested in acquiring 
and saving both;

3.) feeling as if ecological and political changes over their lifetimes 
may be extremely challenging.

So these folks aren't going forward with the same unbounded optimism and 
enthusiasm that marked the people who embraced farming/gardening in the 
late 1960s to 1980s. I think they will eventually become very practical 
and desperately want to learn to garden--but not yet. Right now, most of 
them are still trying to figure out how to grab a piece of what looks 
like a dwindling pie.

And as for the boomers: almost all of the people I know who fit into 
this category already know how to garden. No sense trying to sell them 
very many garden books. Plants, classy tools, ingenious containers, 
water gardens--those they will buy. But they already know how to grow 
the basics and they're pretty good at it, too.

Finally, I have to say that I'm not discouraged by what seems like a 
slump in the garden writing business, but I am trying to adapt to it.

Miranda Smith

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