According to the National Gardening Association, 43 million American households (37 percent) tended a food garden last year, up 19 percent from 2008.

Chris Hiller, regional sales representative for Albion, Maine-based Johnny's Selected Seeds, says that last year's explosion of interest in home vegetable gardening hasn't fallen off, noting three strong sales trends:

• Storage crops such as carrots, cabbage, onions, potatoes, and squash.
• "Microgreens" that people can grow in small containers, even indoors.
• Season-extending devices such as "low tunnels" that enable growers to extend the growing season and even overwinter many food crops.

First-time New Hampshire gardeners may have gotten discouraged last season, as weeks of rainy weather caused a host of plant diseases to infect their tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, beans, squash, and other crops.

Especially devastating: the late blight that came into our state on infected seedlings, causing an epidemic that destroyed both commercial and home garden crops of tomatoes and potatoes throughout the Northeast.

But try again! Plant health experts say the unusual combination of infected imports and a weather pattern that encouraged rapid spread of late blight and other plant diseases probably won't repeat this growing season.

Word of warning!

Though you may notice flats of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, basil and other frost-sensitive crops for sale now at big-box stores and garden centers, it's much too early to plant them. Sow lettuce, peas, carrots, beets and parsley, but hold off on the heat-loving crops until danger of frost has passed, usually around June 1.

Food gardening resources

Visit our Home and Community Food Gardening Web pages for information about seed selection, starting seeds indoors, preparing ground for a garden, planting and transplanting, ongoing care, managing pest and disease problems, using or preserving what you grow, food safety for gardeners, gardening with children, community gardening, and more.

Check out our interactive map of New Hampshire's community gardens. If you have a new garden to list or a correction to our current information, please email Charlie French with details.

Diagnostic services: Soil testing, insect identification, and plant disease diagnosis.

Can't find the information you need on our Web pages?

Call our Education Center's toll-free Info Line: 1-877-398-4769, Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. A trained Master Gardener volunteer will help answer your questions.

Photo credit: Community garden plot, by Janice Stillman. Used with permission.