The Great Hoe-Down

"A Garden," burbled Victorian Poet Thomas Edward Brown, "is a lovesome thing, God wot!" In pinchpenny times like today, a patch of home-growing vegetables can also be economical, ecologically desirable, even chic. In fact, millions of Americans will be out hoeing and sowing this year in the biggest land rush since the victory-garden boom of World War II.

Los Angeles Mayor Thomas Bradley is setting out cherry tomatoes in rows of planters he ordered for city hall's fifth-floor terrace. Governor Milton Shapp has become the jolly green giant of Pennsylvania by getting 25 state institutions to provide excess land, plowing, water and fertilizer for would-be sod-busters. In Milwaukee, county and city governments are leasing 2,500 plots to the public at $8 each per year. From coast to coast, gardening clinics are packing in S.R.O. audiences with Hoe-It-Yourself lectures ranging from Coping with Cutworm to Installing a French Intensive Bed (a system designed to reduce moisture loss and weed growth by mounding the soil).

Headier Harvests. The greening of America, homestyle, started in earnest early last spring when produce prices went as high as an elephant's eye. In protest, city dwellers and exurbanites alike turned lawns into miniature back forties, filled patios with planters (often made with old washtubs or auto tires), and deluged seed companies with orders. Manufacturers of fertilizer and tools chalked up record sales, and many are predicting even headier harvests in 1975. So many green-thumbers took to canning and freezing their surplus vegetables last year that jars and lids were all but impossible to find.

Nonetheless, even in California, where legend has it that anything will grow if it is merely watered, aspiring green-thumbers are warned by experts that a successful garden is no whimsical undertaking. The first step is to pick a fertile, well-drained patch that gets as much sun as possible. For the average family, advises Derek Fell, director of the National Garden Bureau and author of a new book, How to Plant a Vegetable Garden, a plot 15 ft. by 25 ft. can save $250 or more above its investment in seeds (about $12) and tools. Fell recommends 18 varieties of vegetables, which can be grown almost anywhere from early spring to fall.

Blue Potatoes. By planting and tending them, the home gardener can assure himself a supply of vegetables that actually taste as if they were a product of soil and sun rather than recycled chemicals.

Among the best bets of all are tomatoes, which can be raised on window ledges, rooftops, even fire escapes and can keep the family in preserves and frozen pasta sauce all winter. A 15-ft. row of tomato plants can produce up to 100 Ibs. per season at a saving, says Fell, of at least $33. Squash, beans, peas and lettuce will also reward the diligent gardener with bountiful crops. This year, for the fashionable or the finicky, seed-growers are even offering blue potatoes, yellow melons, purple beans and yellow beets.

To be sure, between spading and mulching, weeding and spraying, the home gardener soon finds that bringing home the broccoli takes labor as well as love. But then, God wot, who ever complained about the "labor" involved in catching a fish?

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