Veggie gardening flourishes in Tompkins County

It's spring, and that means people here in Ithaca and Tompkins County are getting out in their gardens.  More and more fenced plots are popping up around town.  One of my neighbors reported that her asparagus has sprouted, another was out preparing her front yard plot for garlic.  

This year, interest in veggie gardening "just zoomed," according to Pat Curran, Horticulture Educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins County (CCE-TC).  In February, she taught a "how to start a veggie garden" class at the Ithaca office and 52 people showed up --that's about 3.5 times more than past classes-- plus about a dozen more expressed interest but couldn't attend.  More recently, the CCE-TC advanced gardening panel drew 30 people, up from 15 last year.  Additional veggie growing classes attracted more than 35 people in Lansing, 30 in Brooktondale, and 12 in Newfield.

Monika Roth, Agriculture Program Leader at CCE-TC, says she's gotten a lot more questions from community groups who want to put in garden plots.  She's even hiring an assistant to help handle all of the requests for vegetable gardening, group gardening, and youth gardening projects.  Community groups including Southside, GIAC, and Racker Center are working on vegetable gardens and outreach.

Additionally, more people have been calling the GrowLine with questions about vegetable gardening, and more people have submitted soil samples for analysis, a sure sign that people are planning food gardens, according to Roth.  Plus, the valued "seed cabinet" is almost depleted, despite a donation of 30 pounds of seeds from one company alone.  "[the seed cabinet] gets used heavily each year, we always run out," she says.

Why are so many people growing veggies this year?  Most likely, it's related to the economy, food safety issues, interest in organic gardening, and enthusiasm about local foods, according to CCE-TC staff.