How common is it to have a garden in your part of the country?

42 comments

1. Having a garden is very popular. I have one and grow a lot of produce. I love it.

   The fruit trees that grow best in northern climates are things like apples and cherries. Having them in your yard isn’t super common. Most people prefer large hard woods like maples and oaks.

   Also, cherries and apples require you to have several of them for pollination reasons I believe. If you have just one tree, I believe you struggle to get fruit.

   Edit: like others have said, I do have berry bushes. Strawberries and raspberries mostly.

2. I wouldn’t consider fruit trees to be part of a standard garden in the Midwest.

   A lot of people garden though. Flowers, various plants, vegetables, some fruits like tomatoes, bell peppers, and pumpkins if in season. But I’d say vegetagles are more common like lettuce, basil.

   Sometimes the gardens are off to the side or in the back yard so you may not see them up front from the street. And in urban areas its more common to rent a nearby plot in a community garden.

3. Pretty common although not fruit trees but vegetable gardens are typical here.

4. Pretty common where I am in WV. Most of the people in my neighborhood have at least a small veggie garden. The neighborhood was an orchard until the 60s, and fruit trees are still common too.

   Personally, I have 12 fruit trees, a couple of berry patches, and a fairly modest veggie garden. I’m actually taking a break from plotting the garden and ordering seeds as we speak.

5. Gardens are ubiquitous. Nearly every house has planters and garden beds around here.

   But most are for flowers and shrubs, not produce.

   I have an herb garden that will give me rosemary, basil, and chives every year. I also plant cucumbers and tomatoes in the late spring. But those plants don’t last year to year and I don’t have the space for any significantly sized vegetable garden.

6. In western Washington invasive fruit bugs are rampant. To get infested fruit it takes strategic netting. If you’re not that invested for apples and pears then it might not worth it.

7. For fruit trees, it really depends on what part of Michigan. We’re the #1 tart cherry state and #3 apple grower in the country. My area pf the state sucks for fruit trees because the soil is sandy and acidic. Great for blueberries, not great for apples or cherries. Go over to the NW side near Traverse City and it’s fantastic soil for cherries.

   Anyway, gardens aren’t that common. Most people don’t have the time for anything more than a tomato or two.

8. I’ve had a garden most of my life, the biggest was when we lived in the country in a small farmhouse (it was 100 feet by 150 feet). Now I live in town and generally just grow a few things like tomatoes and peppers. I do have 3 apple trees and a peach tree. Anything else I want fresh like sweet corn I go to a farm about 10 minutes away.

9. In pennsylvania I had a peach tree and a cherry tree, it’s not common though I’m not sure why.

10. A lot of people have citrus trees and maybe a few pepper plants, but I don’t see a full on garden very often.

11. I don’t normally see gardens but usually it’s from older people who are retired who have them, at least in my part of town. They have the time and resources to constantly care for them.

    Otherwise, I do see some neighborhood / community gardens that larger groups take care of.

12. Extremely common.

13. I live in the garden state. Almost every yard has a garden outside of the cities, everyone I know grows their own tomatoes because they’re so much better than the shit they sell in the grocery stores

14. I certainly don’t have fruit trees, they would die here. But I do garden, although it’s more inside than outside due to our short growing season

15. Pretty common. I recently moved into a new place so I’m in the process of getting a garden up and going. Last summer, I had a bit of peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, and some herbs that I was successful with. I also had some good success in getting blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry established. Not much of a harvest from them last year but they grew enough I’m expecting a decent crop this coming summer. I also got the soil prepped on a 10’x20′ plot and expect to have a much bigger selection of annual crops compared to last year.

    I don’t have any fruit trees, but that’s mostly because the kind of fruit I’m interested in from trees is all tropical stuff. I do have a cherry, but it is black cherry so it is more for feeding birds and bees than feeding humans. Apple trees and other varieties of cherry are not uncommon around me, I just don’t have a huge interest in eating them.

16. How loosley do you want to define garden? Literally every house in my neighborhood has flower beds or bushes. Maybe a quarter of those people also have a small area where they grow vegetables. I think fruit trees are much less common. I have a peach tree that I planted.

17. I live in an HOA community. I have a 20 foot greenhouse, 6 fruit trees, 2 grape vines, 2 other gardens that are outside the greenhouse (one had 16 tomato plants last year the other had about 20 pepper plants).

    In Southern CA, gardens and/or fruit trees are pretty common.

18. Lol certainly can’t grow fruit trees in my neck of the woods. They would not survive. But I do garden, although it’s more inside than outside due to our short growing season

19. Very common in New England. Not a majority of houses but certainly many. Even in cities people will have small plots or potted boxes.

    Generally it is herb and vegetable gardens. People usually don’t grow staples like wheat, corn, and potatoes because large scale farms produce them in such abundance (and wheat is a pain in the ass to process in small batches).

    You will see people grow potatoes and corn though because the quality is often better or there is more variety when you do it yourself.

20. Lots of people have berries in their gardens around here, and apple trees are fairly common.

21. It seems uncommon but not actually unusual in suburban Illinois. I have a veg garden, a grape vine, and various perennial cooking herbs. I know of a few other households in my neighborhood who are growing vegetables, but not very many.

    Fruit trees seem less common here than in rural Wisconsin.

22. Fruit trees aren’t uncommon here but they attract lots of bears so they it’s not a decision to be made with no thought. People might not want to let their little kids or dogs play in the yard because they get a bit nervous around bears.

    For us a garden is typically tomatoes, zucchini, herbs, pumpkins, peppers, etc.

    I removed our garden because the deer, chipmunks, squirrels and other animals ate everything before I could and I wasn’t willing to put in a big fence. (we do still have blueberry bushes and raspberry bushes and I have lots of herbs)

23. I live rurally, which makes it extremely common. Most people probably don’t have fruit trees (persimmon trees are fairly common though). We have flowers and berries. Vegetable gardens are everywhere. Most people at least grow tomatoes.

24. The yards in my neighborhood don’t really allow for people to have proper gardens, but there’s a community garden within walking distance where people rent small plots to grow their own fruits and veggies.

25. I’m in Oregon and gardens are pretty ubiquitous, even in cities. Many people have turned their whole yards into gardens. Fruit trees are abundant. We have beds in our yard although we aren’t doing anything with them at the moment. Several of our neighbors have beautifully cultivated yards or gardens and there’s an enormous apple tree right across the street.

26. I don’t have enough room for fruit trees. But I have wildflowers in parts of the front and back yards, and a small garden along the fence in back: there’s a few raspberry plants, a blueberry bush, and the rest is mostly for hot peppers.

27. I’m sure it’s not 100% but nearly everyone has either vegetable or flower gardens.

28. Not super common because the harsh winter kills it all sadly

29. Not very common around here. I have 4 raised beds of 64 ft^2 each, but aside from small patches of chiles, I don’t see anyone else gardening.

30. In San Francisco it’s not common because most buildings don’t have any open space between them and the sidewalk.

    In Oakland and Berkeley it’s very common.

31. Pretty common to have vegetable gardens. We always plant one and have a couple of raspberry bushes. I‘m not sure why fruit trees are less common; we certainly have no problem growing apples, pears, and drupes in Michigan. I have seen apple and pear trees in the neighborhood.

32. In my suburb there’s not enough space for multiple trees though both my neighbors and myself have a few planters for vegetables and herbs, more for hobby than anything. And decorative plants in the front yard both in ground perennials and annuals in planters.

33. I live in a farming community, so very common. We’re the odd ones out for not having a garden, actually, but we have a couple of black walnut trees that drop a *lot* of nuts every year.

34. We are literally the garden state. They’re as common as they are anywhere else, but for some reason we chose that as a nickname.

    Most houses do have a small garden.

35. Somewhat

36. There aren’t a lot of fruit trees you can plant in Michigan (at least the northern portion) as compared to many other parts of the country. Erratic spring frosts and extreme cold make the options very limited. That being said, we had apple and chokecherry trees in our front yard growing up, along with about 200 sq ft of space with flowers.

    I think gardening in some form is quite common in the US. It’s done even in urban settings in containers on balconies and porches, in a community garden, or indoor gardening. The inflation of grocery prices and food shortages have made gardening even more popular than it was before. I’ve struggled with getting seeds from some of my usual companies due to “unprecedented demand.” Almost everyone has some kind of flower or shubbery in their yards if not a vegetable garden.

    I live in a townhouse apartment with two tiny in ground plots, a fence, and a cemented patio. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all free real estate for plants. Yes, I’m growing a fig tree.

37. It’s not really common where I live. It’s hard to grow things in this climate, the season is very short. You’d need a greenhouse to really get serious about it I think. But I know nothing about gardening.

38. Vegetable gardens are pretty common, and so are flower gardens. People love growing tomatoes around here. Somebody might have a couple of fruit trees depending on the age of their neighborhood (not the wealth of it), but usually nothing worth writing home about. My parents had a couple of fig trees at the house I grew up in that the original owner had planted, a couple of pomegranates, and an apple tree.

    They usually planted one or two dozen tomato plants, yellow squash, and different varieties of flat and pole beans each year. I never really got into it when I was a kid, but now that I have my own yard and space, I’ve been thinking of dedicating part of it to a small vegetable garden…the neighbors have told me that the previous owners had a small apple orchard (dwarf varieties that normally fruit after just 2-3 years) at one point, but they never did very well, so they just got rid of the trees after about 6 years of trying.

    One year while I was in college living on campus but able to go home on the weekends I did grow some *fantastic* heirloom tomatoes (Black Krim variety…omg, delicious) from seed, and some *very* productive Tabasco pepper bushes (I was still harvesting in October that year), but that was about all the itch I ever had for it back then.

39. Very common here in the PNW, especially here in the Willamette Valley. Fertile soil, moderate weather, lots of rain, and a socio-political culture that encourages home gardening. I have a 40×60 plot in my front yard that gets planted with tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, onions, carrots, beets, yellow squash, and green beans every year.

40. Socal here everyone I know with a yard has citrus trees. I have orange, lemon, lime, pomegranate, and a few stone fruit trees. The only thing that doesn’t grow well is apples.

41. uncommon in my neck of the woods, weeds grow like crazy and it rains a ton

42. Fruit trees are common where I live.