By LINDA McGURK
Indiana Correspondent

LAWRENCEBURG, Ind. — As the recession inspired Americans to become more self-sufficient, last year saw both the revival of the vegetable garden and a huge uptick in sales for greenhouses and seed producers.

Now that the winter has finally eased its grip on the Midwest, hobby gardeners starved for warmth and sunshine are once again rushing to get their shovels and fingers in the dirt. But will the trend toward more homegrown vegetables continue this year or will the improved economy send the backyard garden into exile?

“The feedback we’ve been getting is that people are making their gardens bigger this year,” said Mark Davidson, owner of Davidson Greenhouse and Nursery in Crawfordsville, Ind. “And I think a lot of new gardeners had a good experience with having their own produce last year. You know which ones are the new gardeners because they come in way too early for certain crops.”

Davidson, who sells vegetable plants and bulk seeds as well as flowers and ornamental trees, said his March sales were pretty much par with last year.

“I’m still planning to increase my vegetables this year, because I’m selling out of some things,” he said. “I believe (the gardening trend) is here to stay, but of course I’m an internal optimist.”
For Pennsylvania-based Burpee Seeds, overall sales were up 22 percent as of February 2010. George Ball, the company’s chairman, attributed the increase in part to the economy.

“More people are growing their own vegetables as a means to saving money,” Ball said. “Because more families are opting to entertain at home as a means to saving money, they are putting more effort into enhancing their landscape with ornamental plants. They are opting for affordable DIY garden projects that enhance their outdoor living space.”

Ball said certain vegetable favorites tend to be popular year after year, including tomatoes, peppers, beans, summer squash and lettuce. He expects the trend toward more home gardening to continue, partly due to the rise of the green movement and the desire for better health and nutrition, as well as a renewed interest in home cooking.

“As a result of the economic downturn and other external factors such as food contamination outbreaks, the current tomato shortage, etc., the public in general has an increased interest in lifestyle choices that lend to feeling self-reliant. Growing at least some of your own produce is one very rewarding way to do this,” Ball said.

Not all seed companies are experiencing a repeat from last year. Niles Kinerk, chairman and founder of Gardens Alive, said his company’s sales were down by 20 percent compared to late March last year.

But he attributed the drop to the exceptionally harsh and snowy winter, rather than the supposed end of the recession.
“Business started out on track in December. Then it started to slip a little bit in January, and when we got several back-to-back snowstorms in February it felt like it broke people’s back.
Even people in Florida where complaining,” Kinerk said.

“All the snowstorms got people out of the mood, but it’s starting to pick up now. The last two weeks, when the weather has been better, we’ve been about even with last year.”

For mail-order businesses such as Gardens Alive, which specializes in organic seeds and natural pest control, sales usually start in December and peak around mid-March, when the big-box stores are just starting to bring out their seeds and gardening tools.
Though many mail-order companies, including Gardens Alive, keep shipping seeds year round, they’re more dependent on early sales and have a shorter window to make up for lost time.

Indeed, few industries, aside from agriculture, are as dependent on the weather as nurseries and greenhouses. For Davidson Greenhouse and Nursery, the difference between sunny and 70 degrees and rainy and 40 degrees on Mother’s Day could be as much as $10,000 in sales. Davidson speculated that the long winter may have been a boon to his business, since people are more eager than ever to get started in their gardens, jump starting sales in the process.

“I noticed the first few days when it was above 60 (degrees), it felt like people just came out from hibernating,” Davidson said.