Home Vegetable Gardening Statistics

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ILLUSTRATION: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF
To put the answer simply, the worse the economy, the more people garden.

Just how common is home vegetable gardening? Who’s doing it? Why? And what is everybody raising? Well, if it weren’t for the National Gardening Association (Burlington, VT), nobody’d really know. Fortunately, that nonprofit group has been commissioning an annual Gallup poll on the topic for well over a decade on home vegetable gardening. The answers they’ve received are revealing and definitely worth a look.

Home Vegetable Gardening Statistics

In 1971, the year after MOTHER EARTH NEWS N0. 1 was published, 25 million households, or 39% of American families, were raising some of their own vegetables. That number quickly rose until, by 1981, 38 million — 47%, or almost half — of our nation’s households were gardening. Then, however, the numbers started to drop. By 1985, 33 million households — 37% — were growing vegetables.

What happened?

To put the answer simply, the worse the economy, the more people garden. In 1981, interest rates were 20%, the nation was stuck in a deepening recession, and people were growing food primarily to save money. (And gardeners do save money — spending about $32 a year per family while harvesting $356 worth of produce!) Today, the financial climate appears rosier, so the pressure to “garden for greenbacks” has slacked off.

  • Published on Sep 1, 1986
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