Economic factors, contamination fears and Locavores feed home-growing boom

Excerpt By Beth Botts
Chicago Tribune

"I can't wait until spring," says author Bill Alexander. "I miss lettuce. I haven't had any decent lettuce for months."

He's not the only one waiting eagerly for the growing season to begin. All signs are that 2009 will be a banner year for vegetable growing, following a spurt last summer.

"We've seen almost double demand," says Tracy Lee, director of horticulture at the seed company W. Atlee Burpee Co. in Warminster, Pa. (burpee.com). "It's amazing."

When the Garden Writers Association in Manassas, Va., surveyed gardeners in spring 2007, they rated vegetables in second place (after lawns) among types of growing they intended to do, after it had wallowed in fourth or fifth place after perennials for years. Polling hasn't started yet this year, says executive director Robert LaGasse, but he expects the trend to continue.

Why the growth in enthusiasm for growing food? The economy surely has a role. An increase in seed sales is "typical when we see an economic downturn," according to Stephanie Turner, director of seed product at Park Seed Co., another venerable catalog house in Greenwood, S.C. (parkseed.com). "People are trying to stay home and beautify what they have and grow their own food."

But there are other factors at work: When tomatoes were pulled from store shelves last summer for fear of salmonella, it was only the latest of a succession of scares that revealed how long the supply chain is for supermarket produce—and how vulnerable to contamination. Sales of organically grown produce have been on the rise for years, and it's natural to go from buying expensive organic heirloom tomatoes at the farmer's market to wondering if you could grow them yourself cheaper.

If you grow your own food, you don't need to wonder what pesticide was sprayed on it or what was in the soil where it was planted or whether the people who picked it washed their hands. You control all that.

There also is a growing awareness that trucking fruits and vegetables long distances from farm to distribution center to supermarket to home uses a lot of gas and emits a lot of greenhouse gases.

The "Locavore" movement—which contends it is most environmentally responsible to eat food grown close to home—leads to a logical conclusion: There's no place more local than your own backyard. "Your produce is fresher and it hasn't traveled a long distance so you haven't contributed to the carbon footprint," Turner says.