City folks are doing it, suburban folks are too, rural folks often have all along. Garden stores can't keep up with the pace of increased demand for seeds, plants and all the other stuff it takes to start and maintain a garden. i've been reading about the huge growth in urban food gardens especially roof top and city co-op allotments. Apparently there are always more applications than openings. In places devasted by the recession like Detroit urban gardens are everywhere.This last week i've been buying little starter plants for my tiny garden. one real favorite is cherry tomatoes, they did very well here last year so i'm looking for them again. Cherry tomatoes aren't exactly exotic, they've been everywhere every year for years. But this year i learned by asking locally at the garden stores everything they bring in gets sold immediately, especially well known stuff like cherry tomatoes. Apparently my best chance of success was gonna be friday [yesterday] as a big truck load of mixed starters was coming from the wholesale greenhouse growers friday mid-morning. i got there just before noon, the parking lot was a madhouse, they had two cash registers going full tilt.They had lottsa stuff but no cherry tomaoes, the lady in charge said they were sold out at the supplier.
Today i visited the competition, sure enough i found 2 spindly cherry tomato plants hidden among a group of expensive heritage types [took one of them too]. i also got a couple of sweet grape tomato starters and now my two big planters are full, tomatoes up the trellises and romaine lettuce in fronts.
As i checked out with my babies i asked the lady running the show about my cherry tomato problem, she says it's not just them it's everything. People, maybe scared by the recession, maybe bouyed by hopes of better safety and higher quality food, who knows, but nobody can keep up. Among those in the know, the garden supply centers, Gardens are Growing.
