Seeds Seeds Seeds
Apparently, it’s not the year to order your seeds late. Guess who ordered them this morning. Yes, I’m late. Luckily, except for striped german tomato and a mixed packet of lunch box pepper seed, I got everything on my list. Oh, orange benary zinnias were sold out too, but I found a replacement. Lucky me, I got free shipping ~ could that be because I ordered so many?
This is from the Home Garden Seed Association in 2021:
“No, there is no seed shortage. There is, however, a temporary problem with getting packaged seed to home gardeners. The way it works is this: Seed companies project the number of seed packets home gardeners will want based on experience, and fill seed packets based on those projections. All packets are prepared in the months prior to the shipping season, which runs from late winter through spring. If orders greatly exceed projections, as they did this year, the supply of packaged seed will run out. Seed companies are experiencing order volumes 8 to 10 times greater than last year! This is an unprecedented increase.”
So, the good news is there are plenty of seeds, but the bad news is increased demand has made them scarcer. But is that really bad news? More home gardeners mean more good produce grown and consumed locally (as in our back yards), less demand on commercial production and transportation, more children learning where their food comes from, and more oxygen and bees in the universe. I could go on and on. In a nutshell, if you want to be happy for life, be a gardener.
If you can’t find the seed you want:
Check again later in the spring. Vendors do restock. Share with your neighbors. I grow 18 tomato plants each summer, typically 3 plants for each of 6 varieties. Each seed packet contains at least 20 seeds. So that means I have the potential for 180 tomato plants! Even if I kill a few, I don’t need that many seeds. Sharing is a fabulous idea! Maybe I should host a seed-swap?
One last thought on seeds. I’m talking about seeds for home gardeners. The commercial landscape is completely different. They are experiencing shortages for many reasons, including wonky extreme weather swings, labor shortages, and shipping challenges to name a few. If you read Grainews, which I don’t, but landed on it wanting to get my facts straight, things look grim.
And finally, a book recommendation. I’m zooming through “Killing It” by Camas Davis. The author was a long-time magazine writer and editor for Saveur Magazine and National Geographic Adventure, who regrouped in Gascony France. There she apprenticed for a summer at a small pig farm where a multi-generational family raises, butchers and sells hogs, and charcuterie which they also make, at local markets in France. It’s fascinating and a far cry from mass-scale agribusiness we experience here in the states. I grew up with 2 pigs, Wilbur and Maude. They were escape artists but that’s a whole other story for another post.
Joyfully onward ~