We are stardust, we are golden
We are ten billion year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Woodstock, Joni Mitchell

Survey research from the National Gardening Association indicates an explosion of interest in home food gardening this year:

• 43 million American households will plant food gardens in 2009--seven million more than last year.
• 11 percent of veteran gardeners say they plan to expand the size of their gardens this summer and the variety of crops they grow.
• 5 million households will seek space in a community garden.

Here in New Hampshire

Hope Lennon, who places seed orders and arranges educational seminars for gardeners at Blue Seal Feeds & Needs in Bow, says, "Stuff is flying off the shelves; our vegetable seeds have already sold out."

"We've already sold 45 percent more vegetable seedlings than last year and had to place another order," says Lennon. "We've sold twice as many seed potatoes this year, and people are still coming for them from as far away from Maine. We've had an increase in sales of organic products, and we've noticed a big rise in interest in container gardening."

During other crisis points in our history, Americans turned to backyard and community gardening in a big way

In 1918, more than 5.2 million World-War-1 Liberty Gardens yielded 528.5 million pounds of produce.

• From 1933-1936, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) distributed more than three billion dollars to pay Depression Relief Gardeners for their food production.
• Victory Gardens of World War II produced more than 40 percent of the nation's fruits and vegetables.
• And during the Oil Embargo of the mid-1970s, more than half of American households tended vegetable gardens.

They think it tastes better (58 percent)! Saving money (54 percent), enjoying better-quality produce (51 percent) and having safe food (48 percent) fall close behind. Forty percent of food gardeners say they garden to "feel more productive."

Beyond a patch of good dirt (or a few containers of potting soil), hand tools, and seeds, home food producers don't need much by way of fancy equipment to raise fruits and vegetables. A plot managed with intensive techniques can easily yield 10 times the produce of a more conventional garden.

Visit our new Home & Community Food Gardening Web pages

They'll help you learn everything you need to know for success, from site selection and preparation to conditioning the soil, planting, finding space and time, caring for growing crops, managing problems, gardening with children, organizing or locating a community garden in New Hampshire.

We think of this site as a scaffold onto which we'll keep building. So, bookmark this section of our site for frequent reference. And help us keep building it by offering your suggestions for online information resources we haven't provided here.