OCR Text |
Show Why do or don't you garden? By Cleon M. Kolter Utah State University Extension Service Writer When the sweat generated by hoeing rolls down your brow and yet the weeds persist, when insects and blight ravage your corn and cucumbers, when the array ar-ray of garden aids crowds your car from the garage and sends your checking account ac-count into a tailspin, do you perhaps wonder why you garden? We note with interest that people over the country have responded to that question. ques-tion. In a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture household respondents indicated several reasons k growing gardens. Their main reasons were to get better quality, better tasting fruits and vegetables and to save money . Some claimed they garden just for the pleasure and esthetics of it. Some 14 percent of the household had been gardening for just one or two years. Forty percent had gardened three to 10 years and another 40 percent had stuck with it 11 years or more. People seem to get "hooked" on gardening. Those who have been gardening for a few years like- ly will continue. Reasons for not gardening include lack of time, interest or gardening space. Also counted are previous undesirable gardening experiences and total growing cost exceeding store purchase price for certain fruits and vegetables. Home gardening was examined by USDA researchers to determine what impact it has on the U.S. food supply. The study aimed to learn why people garden, how many fruit and vegetable gardening households we have in the U.S., what kinds of produce they grow and how much of it is frozen or canned. Social science analysts tried to determine if home gardening is just a passing fancy or can it be expected to continue long enough to have a significant impact on the national food supply. The department surveyed about 1400 households throughout the U.S. for a three year period. The survey disclosed that about 44 percent of the U.S. households kept a garden each of the three years. About 65 percent of those said they gardened to get better quality and tastier fruits and vegetables. Nearly half of the respondents said home gardening saved money. About one-third of the garden households did it as a hobby. Gardening gave them satisfaction, pleasure and pride. Another group said they had gardens simply because they liked to see things grow. Over the three years the number of households gardening in their own year decreased from 85 to 69 percent. During that time, the number using space outside out-side their yard to garden increased from 14 to 22 percent. About 62 percent of the garden households froze some of their garden produce. Beans, then corn lead the field. Peppers and peas shared third place. Forty-nine percent of garden households can or preserved their home grown produce. Most of these canned tomatoes. A number also canned beans. The USDA researchers found gardening garden-ing to be closely related to the economy. When the economy sagged, gardening increased; in-creased; when it improved gardening declined. |