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By RANDALL DICKERSON Associated Press Writer NASHVILLE (AP) — The tomatoes are done for the year, the corn is in the freezer and the applesauce is being put up. So what do gardeners do now? Anticipating the winter seed catalogs like a child waits for Christmas, gardeners — an increasing number of them first-timers — dream about vegetable varieties they have yet to grow. Ag experts and sales numbers indicate there’s a renewed interest in home gardening.

The Environmental Working Group reports bottled water sold in markets and convenience stores are no more free of pollutants than the water that pours from the kitchen tap at a fraction of the cost.

Ten top-selling brands of bottled water contained a total of 38 pollutants including fertilizer, industrial chemicals, bacteria and the residue of drugs such as Tylenol. The bottled water showed an average of eight pollutants in each sample.

Americans drank more than twice as much bottled water in 2007 as they did in 1997, guzzling 8.8 billion gallons at a cost of $10.3 billion in 2007, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp., a research and consulting firm based in New York. Although commercials often show pristine mountain springs, the reality is that bottled water often comes from city water supplies, said Renee Sharp, an Environmental Working Group senior scientist.

For the past several years people have become more health conscious, thus learning about the true benefits of eating organic foods. Besides the long-term health benefits of changing your eating style to include foods that are organically grown, there are also health benefits that deal directly with specific food related diseases. Since the introduction of processed foods to the Western world, the annual rate of consumers who are affected by food-borne illnesses and pathogens has risen significantly. Diseases such as e-coli and salmonella are seen much more frequently since the introduction of processed foods. These illnesses are no longer confined to meat products. Fruits and vegetables are being found with pathogens that cause serious illness in consumers. This is also true in other parts of the world. When newly processed foods are introduced, consumers begin to notice a sharp increase in the number of people who are affected by food-related illnesses.