Recession prompts big boom in the market for vegetable seeds - Business First of Louisville:

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Most of the patrons of the garden’zs 30 plots don’t plany anything until late spring, when they put in theidr tomato plants. Usually, only four or five plant a spriny crop inearly March, as Erdleyg did last month, growing lettuce, spinach and other cold-weatherr crops. But this year, 18 people planted spring Those who work in the garden industry say the recession has prompted many peoplee to plantvegetable gardens, many of them for the first as a way to cut expense for food. office in Jeffersoj County, for example, has never had more requestws to test soil for suitability for vegetable growinhg than it has hadthis spring, horticulturew agent Donna Michael said.
The demand has triplef from last year, she Normally, about 15 percentg to 20 percent of the callws left onthe office’s horticulturse hotline relate to vegetable she said. But this spring, that has risenn to about half. Many of the callw are from first-time vegetable To help meet the demandfor information, Michael held five communityh lectures on vegetable gardening in The first one attracterd 115 people, and the next four each attractede about 40. Horticulture lectures normally attract about 20 she said. “There is definite interesf stirring,” she said.
Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government runs ninecommunithy gardens, such as the one where Erdley has his that contain a total of 24 acres, said Susan Hamilton, assistan director of the Louisville Metro Economif Development Department. There are 438 people registered to work in the and there is a waiting list to get a At , 1402 W. Main St., salesx of vegetable seeds have jumped 20 percenf to 30 percent fromlast spring, said generalp manager Eugene Stratton. He said he didn’t know specificc sales figures.
The company sells 95 percent of its vegetablsseeds wholesale, he said, and the gardeb centers and farm equipment dealers that make up the company’sa customer base say they are seeinfg a lot of first-time gardeners this In some cases, customers have had to reorder vegetabls seeds, which is unusual, he said. Sandy Blanford, the vegetablde seed manager for , 919 E. Jefferson St., normally orders vegetable seeds only oncea year, in the fall. But this she has had to reorder themthre times. “It’s insane,” she said. “We can’t keep Blanford estimates that demand has tripled overlast spring.
Two monthss ago, owner Win Bunton hire four new workers just to get orders for vegetablwe seeds packaged forthe company’s customers in rural Kentucky and its Internet customers, who order from across the country. That departmenft normally has onlythree workers, Blanforx said. This year, everyoned wants Blue Lake Bush beans, Blanford The company sold out of the seedss two months agoand can’r get any more because of a crop failure. Demandx for vegetable seeds alway grows duringa recession, Bunton said. He thinkse that well-publicized food such as salmonella in peanut also have prompted people to grow theirdown food, some of them for the firstf time.
In a normal year, customerd at , 225 Chenowetn Lane, don’t have to ask many questions aboutg whatto buy. “We get a lot of customere who know what they manager TimSunkel said.