ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Barb Sweet
The Telegram
It might still feel cold and often damp in the May dreariness of the Avalon Peninsula, but gardening is hot, hot, hot this year,
Peter Byrne, owner of The Seed Company by E.W. Gaze on Harbour Drive, has 8,000 new customers, including across the country and even in the U.S. He has doubled his staff and put on a night shift to keep up with the seed orders.
That’s blooming good news for a 100-year-old Newfoundland and Labrador business.
Byrne said Tuesday the bountiful spring came courtesy of big national seed companies not being able to keep up with demand and having to suspend web sales.
(Well-known Veseys of P.E.I. has this notice posted on its website since May 9 indicating it was allowing orders again: “We greatly appreciate your patience over the last three weeks during which time we had closed the seed category on our website.”)
But the lull among the major players spun off for Gaze, and Byrne is hoping the name recognition gained will keep the company increasing its customer base. Sales have quadrupled.
“It’s unbelievable. … We’ve never been there before,” Byrne said of surpassing small player status.
Gaze also plans to open its store to the public soon — it’s been doing curbside pickups, which have worked great, Byrne said.
“Everybody is gardening. It’s all about the fertilizer, lime and seeds,” he said of local customers.
In the winter, house plants were selling like hotcakes, gone within two days of arrival.
“Everybody wanted to put their hands in the soil,” Byrne said.
Lettuce, tomatoes, basil, arugula and seed potatoes are all hot local sellers, and many customers are new and young, with lots of questions.
At Rise and Shine Nursery in Goulds, Jeanette Putt was her second day into being reopened to the public Tuesday after robust curbside pickup sales.
“It was more business in April and May than we’ve ever had, really,” Putt said.
Orange arrows on the wide pavement alongside the row of greenhouses instruct customers which direction to walk in. The greenhouses also have directional arrows one-way in and out, and hand sanitizer. Each door has a sign posted with social-distancing instructions.
Staff wear masks, and customers are encouraged to do so if possible.
The nursery also has a drive-thru area for trees.
Putt allowed it might be tricky for customers to get the hang of not handling the plants and flowers they are not buying, but she hoped it will go OK, as people are used to not handling produce in the grocery stores.
“We’re hoping they will only touch what they really want,” Putt said.
Some of the new customers this year are families wanting to grow veggies as a project.
Cynthia Roberts of Goulds is a returning customer, but she was particularly anxious to get to the garden centre this year and was happy to see it be allowed to open Monday.
“I was beside myself,” Roberts said as she checked in a cartload of flowers and plants.
Tim Murray of Murray’s Garden Centre in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's said Monday's Level 4 opening for garden centres and landscapers was good news.
There too, curbside activity was in keeping with trends across the country.
“It’s definitely increasing in popularity right now,” Murray said last week, adding young families in particular are using gardening as an opportunity to educate their children about how to use spaces to grow their first vegetable and herbs.
Out of the COVID-19 crisis may come a grassroots environmental movement, Murray said.
He said the advice of construction and landscape associations on good practices helped the business plan for keeping customers and staff safe.
That includes rigorous sanitizing and a layout plan that keeps customers flowing through at a social distance.
Even self-sufficient gardeners such as Joan FitzGerald of St. John’s will go buy annuals — it’s a post-Mother’s Day tradition for her and her daughter to go to Rise and Shine.
Otherwise, FitzGerald’s typical suburban-sized lot in east-end St. John’s is a wonderment.
She grows everything, and that includes 80 pounds of potatoes last summer.
Her baby-barn-size greenhouse has rows of seeds started, with every type of lettuce you can imagine.
There will be garlic, spinach, tomatoes, broccoli, zucchini, strawberries and flower planters for every occasion.
Grape vines in the greenhouse will be used for veggie and moose-stuffed grape leaves.
Last year, she had spinach and lettuce up until February.
And she gives piles of her harvest away, including zucchini and chocolate loafs last year.
“What am I going to do with all this once it is grown?” she said, surveying her planned box container gardens and greenhouse. (She also has a community garden plot).
“You buy a pack of seeds. If it is lettuce, there are probably 1,000 seeds in the pack. You put it out and before you know it you have 200 heads of lettuce. What are you going to do with 200 heads of lettuce except share them around?”
Gardening has been a passion her entire life and she’s an avid hiker, part of the maintenance crew on the East Coast Trails system.
“Mom called me a mountain goat,” FitzGerald said, adding she got her love of flowers and vegetables from her mother.
She lost a few prized trees during Snowmageddon, but her front garden is already a beauty of bulbs.
“People walk down the street passing by and say, ‘Your garden is gorgeous. I love it. It’s year ’round,’” FitzGerald said.
Before the double-bubble, FitzGerald wasn’t minding the lockdown as much, aside from getting together with family, who she kept in touch with through calls.
She has three compost bins, with two turned and about ready to go, and they will yield 30-50 wheelbarrows of soil.
“I am loving my time spent in the garden. I come out and I just get lost,” FitzGerald said.
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