When I first started offering classes about growing vegetables (at the botanical garden where I work), there was a tepid response at best.
But then master gardeners and others became interested in attractive edible landscapes, kitchen gardening, and lasagna gardening.
Then the 'Great Recession' hit and lots more folks were interested in 'growing their own' vegetables.
There have been numerous recent books about vegetable gardening rolled out (most of which are great) -- just get started, is my thought.
My friend and colleague, Bob Polomski, (author of Month by Month Gardening in the Carolinas) forwarded a link to this great graphic that documents our resurging interest in vegetable gardening, from the National Gardening Association.
I'm totally amazed (and excited) to see that a quarter of Americans, more or less, are growing vegetables. How cool is that! There's nothing more local than harvesting your own vegetables of whatever sort.
I'm not surprised that tomatoes are number one, in terms of what folks are growing. I'm always bemused by cucumbers (as they're among the few vegetables that I don't have much affinity with). Sweet peppers (yeah!), carrots (difficult for us in the SE, unless we have very deep raised beds, summer squash, nice if we avoid squash vine borers (and I do hope the local woodchucks stay in grassy areas far from us)
