The Baltimore Sun, the indulgent parent of Garden Variety, asked us for the top 10 gardening stories for 2009.
It is the kind of accounting that newspapers do every year, and Garden Variety submitted this list. Let us know what you think. Additions? Subtractions?
- The new first lady plants a vegetable garden at the White House and starts a nationwide -- worldwide in fact -- conversation about healthy eating from the garden.
- Late blight arrives early and wipes out tomato crops up and down the East Coast. Organic gardens are especially hard hit.
- Likewise, a poor growing season and a rainy harvest season wipe out much of the nation's pumpkin crop, putting holiday pies in danger.
- Despite Mayor Shelia Dixon's fretful concerns about her tulips, vegetables planted in Baltimore's City Hall gardens feed the hungry.
- Yet another disease, septoria leaf spot, damages the Black-eyed Susans, Maryland's state flower.
- Bat bites are on the rise, as is a killer virus, white nose syndrome. Marylanders learn how important bats are to crop insect control.
- With a little nudge from the White House, a farmers' market opens up in downtown DC, feeding city dwellers.
- Ocean City council bans the sale of a variety of salvia said to cause hallucinations. The police have their hands full with beer.
- Joe the Gardener" and volunteers install a huge garden in a single day in Baltimore's Oliver neighborhood.
- And, finally, G20 leaders hold their annual summit in Pittsburgh's Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden.
File photo of salvia divinorum