Are you aware of the crisis demographic facing our country? No, not a teen idol pregnancy. I refer to the decline steeper popularity of gardening.
In a poll recently, the number of Americans who gardening lists as one of the leisure of their favorite declined from 15 percent in 1995 to 6 percent. That's just two points above the things the percentage of people while not aware of, like sleeping and playing golf.
Many factors explain the trend that worried about it. People have less free time. Fresh vegetables are now widely available in supermarkets. But if we want to generate interest in gardening, we must focus on other causes: aging of the population gardening. As inconceivable as it sounds, maybe some young people may really think that gardening is not cool.
How can we get young people interested in gardening? They do not like bees and butterflies - you can not just plant a few flowers, colorful to attract them into the garden.
There are many techniques we can try. Crop selection is important. You can not give the package carrot seeds to the people with the attention span of MTV. The "day-to-maturity" number will turn it off. They will think, "Heck, my days to maturity of less than that!" Radish is a better option. When you plant the seeds of turnips, you have to pull back your hand quickly so that the seeds do not hit your finger on the way out of the ground. Now that's some gnarly gardening, dude.
Or we can try to convince young people that share a heritage seeds through the Internet such as Seed Savers cool because it kind of like Napster.
But none of these methods will work unless we improve the image of gardening. We have to make it look hip and edgy. If today's kids will do what I do - surfing the internet for hours looking for news of gardening is not unusual - they will realize that, contrary to popular belief, gardening truly radical and dangerous.
Dangerous? Gardening? Oh yes, and I'm not just talking about the warning terrible issued recently by the American Society of Hand Therapists, the scary note that the "sweeping, digging, and repetitive else connected with gardening" can cause "of problems in hand and the entire upper limb. "No, we're not going to appeal to the kids' belief in immortality by warning them that they can get Tendinitis of scooping dirt out of the bag.
I'm talking about the adrenaline real, like the danger Mrs. Jean Collop, a woman in Cornwall, England, which faced the garden recently. Awakened by the sound, he ran into the garden in her nightdress and face the thief. Being English, he has a garden gnome, which she instinctively grabbed for use as a weapon. Become more English, he "politely to people who do not move and then threw it at him and hit him." Surprised by the blow, or maybe just to be polite, "he lay for some time and did not move," said Collop. Just in case, he reloaded. "I have a gnome else I can use, but I do not want to break it, too."
Of the youth today will be turned on by the mind to play Dirty Harry (literally) in the garden. And if hanging out 'with the sound gnomies too tame, it got a lot dicier than that. If you plunge a shovel you into the garden soil, you never know what dangers await you in the mysterious world below ground.
On the Caribbean island of Trinidad, for example, Davis Franklyn caring for his garden when he found a gun-mm .38-load. Local believe it may have been dropped by a man who was being chased in the area by police recently.
Not to be outdone, Emanuel Hurley was digging in his garden in Ohaupo, New Zealand, when the spade struck the 4-ton World War II-era tank. Authorities believe it may have been dropped by a man being chased by police in the area recently.
Of course, this is the stereotype of rude to imply that young people are only interested in the danger and violence. They care about other things as well. So, they'll like "Poison Garden" which opened recently in northeast England. Jane, Duchess of Northumberland, spent 400,000 British pounds cultivation strange and deadly vegetation such as foxgloves, lettuce wild nightshades and tranquilizers. Garden also features cannabis, opium poppies and hallucinogenic mushrooms.
OK, I take back what I said about how you can not attract young people to garden with certain plants.
Poison Garden which reminds me of the park the young thief. I wonder why the thief would wander in the garden Collop simple at night. According to the article, the intruder was arrested and charged with theft and possession of marijuana. Hmm. It sounds as if Collop may have grown a little "poison garden" itself!
I'm kidding, of course. (It should be obvious, but I know how rough the English law of defamation.) And I'm a child to convey serious messages to young people: Stay in school. Do not do lettuce wild tranquilizers. And most importantly, get out there and park the extreme!
John Hershey is a dad, humor, author and gardener. E-mail him at home@sfchronicle.com. www.sfgate.com
In a poll recently, the number of Americans who gardening lists as one of the leisure of their favorite declined from 15 percent in 1995 to 6 percent. That's just two points above the things the percentage of people while not aware of, like sleeping and playing golf.
Many factors explain the trend that worried about it. People have less free time. Fresh vegetables are now widely available in supermarkets. But if we want to generate interest in gardening, we must focus on other causes: aging of the population gardening. As inconceivable as it sounds, maybe some young people may really think that gardening is not cool.
How can we get young people interested in gardening? They do not like bees and butterflies - you can not just plant a few flowers, colorful to attract them into the garden.
There are many techniques we can try. Crop selection is important. You can not give the package carrot seeds to the people with the attention span of MTV. The "day-to-maturity" number will turn it off. They will think, "Heck, my days to maturity of less than that!" Radish is a better option. When you plant the seeds of turnips, you have to pull back your hand quickly so that the seeds do not hit your finger on the way out of the ground. Now that's some gnarly gardening, dude.
Or we can try to convince young people that share a heritage seeds through the Internet such as Seed Savers cool because it kind of like Napster.
But none of these methods will work unless we improve the image of gardening. We have to make it look hip and edgy. If today's kids will do what I do - surfing the internet for hours looking for news of gardening is not unusual - they will realize that, contrary to popular belief, gardening truly radical and dangerous.
Dangerous? Gardening? Oh yes, and I'm not just talking about the warning terrible issued recently by the American Society of Hand Therapists, the scary note that the "sweeping, digging, and repetitive else connected with gardening" can cause "of problems in hand and the entire upper limb. "No, we're not going to appeal to the kids' belief in immortality by warning them that they can get Tendinitis of scooping dirt out of the bag.
I'm talking about the adrenaline real, like the danger Mrs. Jean Collop, a woman in Cornwall, England, which faced the garden recently. Awakened by the sound, he ran into the garden in her nightdress and face the thief. Being English, he has a garden gnome, which she instinctively grabbed for use as a weapon. Become more English, he "politely to people who do not move and then threw it at him and hit him." Surprised by the blow, or maybe just to be polite, "he lay for some time and did not move," said Collop. Just in case, he reloaded. "I have a gnome else I can use, but I do not want to break it, too."
Of the youth today will be turned on by the mind to play Dirty Harry (literally) in the garden. And if hanging out 'with the sound gnomies too tame, it got a lot dicier than that. If you plunge a shovel you into the garden soil, you never know what dangers await you in the mysterious world below ground.
On the Caribbean island of Trinidad, for example, Davis Franklyn caring for his garden when he found a gun-mm .38-load. Local believe it may have been dropped by a man who was being chased in the area by police recently.
Not to be outdone, Emanuel Hurley was digging in his garden in Ohaupo, New Zealand, when the spade struck the 4-ton World War II-era tank. Authorities believe it may have been dropped by a man being chased by police in the area recently.
Of course, this is the stereotype of rude to imply that young people are only interested in the danger and violence. They care about other things as well. So, they'll like "Poison Garden" which opened recently in northeast England. Jane, Duchess of Northumberland, spent 400,000 British pounds cultivation strange and deadly vegetation such as foxgloves, lettuce wild nightshades and tranquilizers. Garden also features cannabis, opium poppies and hallucinogenic mushrooms.
OK, I take back what I said about how you can not attract young people to garden with certain plants.
Poison Garden which reminds me of the park the young thief. I wonder why the thief would wander in the garden Collop simple at night. According to the article, the intruder was arrested and charged with theft and possession of marijuana. Hmm. It sounds as if Collop may have grown a little "poison garden" itself!
I'm kidding, of course. (It should be obvious, but I know how rough the English law of defamation.) And I'm a child to convey serious messages to young people: Stay in school. Do not do lettuce wild tranquilizers. And most importantly, get out there and park the extreme!
John Hershey is a dad, humor, author and gardener. E-mail him at home@sfchronicle.com. www.sfgate.com
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