Here's one bright spot in a sea of depressing economic news: companies that produce garden seeds are experiencing a spike in business and are actually hiring more employees. More Americans will be planting vegetable gardens this summer, trying to cut their grocery bills while gaining more control over the quality of their food.
The Bangor Daily News in Maine couldn't resist the obvious puns in this story:
Seed Sales Sprouting in Maine
Vegetable Growing Gets a Boost as Economy Fails to Take Root
By Sharon Kiley Mack
BDN Staff
WINSLOW, Maine — Even as sleet and snow still pelt frozen Maine, sales at the state’s seed companies and distributors are shooting through the roof. They are being pushed by two forces: the growing consumer demand for locally grown food and economic hard times. "Home garden sales are off the wall," Joann Matuzas, who runs the retail store at Johnny’s Selected Seeds, said Wednesday. "We are up 50 percent, and obviously, the economy has something to do with it."
Matuzas said she is seeing a wide range of customers: from first-time gardeners who are looking to save money by growing their own food, to veteran gardeners planning to expand existing plots. Experts call it the Victory Garden phenomenon: When times get tough, gardening not only takes the mind off the recession, it also can be cost-effective.
I'm a longstanding and somewhat fanatic gardener, but I'm a little skeptical about how cost-effective growing your own food on a small scale really is. I've done freezing, drying, and canning; I've grown my own dry beans and popcorn; we even tried growing and grinding our own wheat for bread back in the hippie days. Tomato sauce, applesauce, salsa, pesto, pickles, jams, and jellies have emerged from my steamy kitchen on hot August nights. It all tastes great (well, mostly), and I know that it's 100% organic.
But does it really save money? Probably, if you don't factor in my time. But I do sometimes wonder, when looking at the cost of seeds, fertilizers, garden tools and gadgets...not to mention the supplies and energy used to put food by. It would violate the optimistic spirit of gardening to actually keep track of all of those expenses.
The beauty of a basket of fresh-picked vegetables is undeniable, and the lure of growing your own is attracting new gardeners.
The National Gardening Association, a nonprofit education organization, is predicting that the number of homes growing vegetables this summer will jump more than 40 percent compared with two years ago.
"As the economy goes down, food gardening goes up," said Bruce Butterfield, the group’s research director. "We haven’t seen this kind of spike in 30 years."
While I wouldn't characterize a worldwide economic meltdown as any kind of positive development, an increase in gardening may be one of its few positive results. More people getting outdoors and putting in a little physical labor growing their own food this summer seems like a good thing.
And at least in the short term, some jobs are being created.
The increase in seed sales has translated into a major hiring boom at three of Maine’s seed companies, Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Winslow, FEDCO in Waterville, and Pinetree Garden Seeds in New Gloucester.
At Johnny’s, 30 people work in the call center, which takes telephone orders, and that doesn’t include the Internet, international and fax orders center, where 6-inch-high piles of orders sit on each desk.
In the seed packing section of the factory, 15,000 units a day are filled, all by hand. Over in the shipping room, 3,700 packages were mailed out Tuesday. More than 200 workers are employed at the seed plant, which has been operating for 35 years.
"We haven’t even hit the peak," Matuzas said. "It is just phenomenal," Dick Meiners, owner of Pinetree Seeds, said Wednesday. "Our sales are up by 32 percent. It has been years since we’ve seen a double-digit increase." Meiners, who usually hires eight to 10 workers for the seasonal business, has hired 23 new people.
These are short-term jobs, but people in rural areas like Maine are used to piecing together seasonal work to make a living. Especially at this time of year before the summer tourist season, a few new jobs can make a big difference in the small towns where these companies are located.
Are you buying seeds? Starting to plant? Got that Victory Garden planned out?