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Excerpt: Industry surveys show double-digit growth in the number of home gardeners this year and mail-order companies report such a tremendous demand that some have run out of seeds for basic vegetables such as onions, tomatoes and peppers. "People's home grocery budget got absolutely shredded and now we've seen just this dramatic increase in the demand for our vegetable seeds. We're selling out," said George Ball, CEO of Burpee Seeds, the largest mail-order seed company in the U.S. "I've never seen anything like it."  home gardening in 2009, based on spring seed sales data and a telephone survey. One-fifth of respondents said they planned to start a food garden this year and more than half said they already were gardening to save on groceries.Community gardens nationwide are also seeing a surge of interest. The waiting list at the 312-plot Long Beach Community Garden has nearly quadrupled — and no one is leaving, said Lonnie Brundage, who runs the garden's membership list. ----------------------------------------------------------- Roof-top gardening isn't for everybody. Before you try it, you should check with an architect or engineer to see if your roof can sustain it. If not, here's another idea for urban gardening-- 'seed balls.' They are compost and seeds rolled up in clay and then dried out. It's so hardy you can grow plants virtually anywhere. Anybody can just roll them out and you don't have to dig them in or anything like that and it protects them from the birds," said Repkin. Source: http://a.abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section ------------------------------------------------------------- Erickson, who chronicles her endeavors on her garden blog, is in good company this season. Urban vegetable patches are sprouting all over the Twin Cities, seeded by a perfect storm of environmental, cultural and economic factors. "Interest has increased dramatically," said Paige Pellini, owner of Mother Earth Nursery in Minneapolis, who said many customers tell her they're tearing up part of their yards to grow vegetables this year. Source: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/ ------------------------------------------------------------- American architects have incorporated vertical garden features into commercial and residential projects in such unlikely places as Huntsville, Ala. An outfit called Green Living Technologies sells modular kits for home use, with special lightweight growing media. But there are lower-tech ways of greening your own vertical spaces. A vertical garden can be as basic as a bare wall and a bunch of flowerpots. We're thinking of a Berkeley house with bright blue pots of pelargoniums anchored to a south-facing stucco wall, for a fine instant-Mediterranean look. You can plant vines on hinged trellises for easy maintenance, or espalier a tree against a wall. If those are deciduous, you get cooling in summer and allow heating in winter. |
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