I sat in on a webinar on Wednesday sponsored by The Garden Writer’s Associationand Scotts Miracle-Gro. The subject of the webinar was: “The Impact of Home & Community Gardening in America“. It was packed with awesome information on how growing food is the next hottest thing. (We all know that of course, but it was nice to have it confirmed with researched statistics.)
My favorite statistic?
That 43 million U.S. households plan to grow their own fruits, vegetables, herbs and berries in 2009. That is an increase of 19 % from last year!
Joe Lamp’l (aka Joe Gardener) posted a nice summary of the findings HERE, so I will let you read about it on his site. A full report will be released to the public sometime in March. But if you visit Joe’s site, you can get the inside scoop!
About the Author
Theresa Loe blogs here about taking the garden full circle while striving for a more local, fresh-from-the-garden lifestyle. She is a TV producer, video host, freelance garden writer and a wrangler of chickens and children. (Not necessarily in that order.) For more information on these topics, you can subscribe to her free monthly newsletter.
Theresa Loe is the award- winning Co-Executive Producer & Canning Expert on Growing A Greener World TV. She blogs here about Living Homegrown®, local and fresh-from-the-garden. 
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent!! We keep trying to coerce people into growing their own veggies. :>
Now you can officially say “Come on…Everybody is doing it” and be totally truthful.
LOL! Yes! I actually know some people for whom doing what “everyone else is doing” is important. Have never understood that sheep mentality, but if it works to help people get into gardening, then I’m ok with it.
ME TOO!
Here’s one of my favorite stats from the report: 68% of food gardeners are over the age of 45.
True – That was an interesting stat. But that stat also worried me.
We need to attract more young folk into the group or us veggie growers are going to die out! I teach my kids to garden and they love it and I know many moms that do (Like Teresa above). But where are all the twenty something veggie growers?
I know there is a big group of young veggie growers who are interested in being stewards of the earth, sustainable, etc. And I hear this group is growing. But as garden writers, how can be we better attract more to the fold? We need more food growers!