Fewer gardens this year

Around here the word is rain rain rain

I do a lot of agricultural writing (that's how I make my living) and there seems to be way more people gardening this year in Alabama and I thought throughout the southeast....so your comments from Tennessee surprise me...

I know last year the national hatcheries also sold way more chicks than usual and had waiting lists at all of them.

Also, the folks at our Extension Service say the have been inudated with phone calls and walk ins and people signing up for seminars for anything to do with gardens, small livestock, canning, freezing,etc.

And just generally when driving around our county we have seen way more gardens than ever before....at least since I was a little bitty girl here....and it seems if a home doesn't have a "plowed" garden, you see containers with tomato plants, peppers, etc all around their porches....

So the trend I have been seeing is more folks having gardens around here, not less.

Oh---and another trend is that I have sold more "hatching" eggs the past tw years than ever before!

Not my part of TN.

Not the case here!

Yup we have had ours in for 2 months. Alot of people in our area planted over Memorial Day w/e.

We are setting up a hydroponic garden for our basement this winter. Need to get some more lettuce, spinach and other good hydro plant seeds.

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Roger

I'm seeing some un-planted gardens here too, I think it's mostly due to the weather. April was lovely, then it started raining and hasn't stopped, plus the unusual heat.

My cool weather veggies have been not too good, everything bolted so quickly

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I saw something nasty in the woodshed

Ours seem to have held steady here too. It looks like our co-op and grocery store over estimated on plant sales this year a bit but otherwise I would say we are about the same.

Here in KY you see tons of gardens and this year there are more and bigger ones. Of course I've seen a few "new" gardeners scale back this year. The weeds and bugs got them last year and they got discouraged. The weather was really bad last year also. Instead of planting tomatoes we should have been building boats.

LOL....garden planting and stocking up on food stuffs seems to be according to how confident the people in the area are in our current government/stock market situation.

I have never seen as many gardens in east TX as I am seeing this year. People that normally have gardens are making them bigger and people that have never had a garden are putting them in. Even saw a front yard in town the other day that was planted to corn. I can't find used canning jars anywhere and normally they are really abundant.

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www.easttxbees.com
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I'm making my garden SMALLER this year.

Last year was our first year and I overdid it. Between realizing that I don't have time to have a huge garden to it raining ever 2-3 days, I can't get in to get it tilled or planted.

In our immediate area, around our little town, I see very few gardens. The ones I see seem to be planted every year. That is just speaking for this general area, so I can't say about other parts of the state.

I, personally, think people are just too lazy to do the work, at least around here. Lots of folks home during the day but staying indoors.

I'm not sure what to think about my area.

I live in a small waterside group of 30 homes but between us and the rest of the world is an older neighborhood with a mixture of nice and sketchy folks with lots of empty places coming up in the last year.

In our pretty stable and relatively affluent section, I got 3 other folks on the bandwagon and all of them have larger gardens this year. Mine is the same size but with fewer things in it (because I'm working too much overtime).

In the outer neighborhood there are fewer gardens. Some because of the houses being empty or changed to rentals for the old folks who have moved on or because the original owners have passed this past year.

I think part of it is because more people are renting now and rentals are still sort of iffy on whether or not you can dig a garden.

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Christy
Growing Human
http://growinghuman.blogspot.com

When wearing narrow lenses of hate and ignorance, is it any wonder one finds it difficult to see clearly? - Me

There are probably less gardens around here this year, but I think it is due to a mixture of issues. One neighboring family is going through a divorce, and another is dealing with some child care issues. Both have no gardens this year. Because I'm away from the farm for 2-3 days each week on a work assignment, I made my garden smaller this year, but I put a cover crop of iron & clay peas on the "non-cultivated" portion...so it's all still growing something.

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"Luck is the residue of design" - Branch Rickey

I lost my first crop of potatoes and squash-unseasonable rains rotted them-then 12 DAYS SOLID below freezing temps killed most of my broccoli, tomatoes, and tropical leafies.and ssweet potatoes. The vines were 6-7 years old- I pulled off the tubers every summermand replanted the vines. 2nd crop of potatoes was too small to eat so I'm keeping them for seed for next fall. I have 1 1/2 crops of corn coming on and was going to plant peanuts in the fallow pots but broke my wrist and arm in 8 places. My car is totalled. I have no idea if I'll be able to to work since I get anxious driving anymore. Starting Physical Therapy tomorrow. All our beans are ruined by bugs. I hate summer in Florida.

Gosh that's rough! Hope you are back on your feet soon!

Grandmotherbear! Gentle HUGS!

It's the opposite here. There are gardens in most yards, maybe not huge ones but they are there! My sister and I were out garage saleing and saw tons of gardens in the neighborhoods. And people are planting veggies in their flower beds.

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Holding steady here in Central Arkansas

I haven't walked around the neighborhood to often this year to tell,
but I know that my neighbor last year that had a first year garden
hasn't planted this year, problably because of the cool rainy weather
that wasn't warm enough for planting until recently.

But, at the same time I expanded my garden, and my neighbors daughter
who also lives to the right of us started a raised bed garden this year.
My brother tells me it looks wonderful so far.