Shovel ready - back yard gardens

Veggies seed sales are way up and the back yard garden is back in vogue. I have doubted this trend from the start, knowing how inept I would be at tending a garden on a day in and day out basis and projecting that sad reality to everyone else. However, I have to concede at this point that the trend indeed is real. From APP.com:

Amid the Washington talk of "shovel-ready" recession projects, it appears few projects are more shovel-ready than backyard gardens. Veggie seed sales are up double-digits at the nation's biggest seed sellers this year.

What's more, the number of homes growing vegetables will jump more than 40 percent this year compared with just two years ago, projects the National Gardening Association, a nonprofit organization for gardening education.

"As the economy goes down, food gardening goes up," says Bruce Butterfield, the group's research director. "We haven't seen this kind of spike in 30 years."

At W. Atlee Burpee, the world's largest seed company, seed sales will jump 25 percent this year, estimates Chairman George Ball. "It's weird to have everyone else you talk to experiencing plunging markets. We're on a roll."

TK: I need to find a backyard garden blog or two and keep tabs on the highs and lows of this phenomenon this spring and summer.