In Erica Bartsch’s 33 years in the nursery industry, never has there been such demand for vegetable seeds and seedlings.
Barossa Nursery have always taken pride in having their seed stands filled and seedling trays heavily stocked, yet since COVID-19 it’s proved impossible.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, ever,” said Erica.
Rapid sales have continued for close to a month now and Erica said her son, Daniel is working extra hard to fill orders but supply is just not there.
“He’s been ordering, begging, pleading, ringing and hassling and they just send us a certain amount. For instance, the last order was for about 400 trays and we only got 50!”
Barossa Nursery are now having to limit purchases to three punnets per customer which includes one of each vegetable.
“We feel this is the fairest way,” said Erica.
“It’s unfortunate for our regular customers. We assume it is a new group of customers staying at home with their family who are taking up vegie growing which is great.”
One of Barossa Nursery’s seedling suppliers have since increased their working hours to two, 10 hour shifts a day in an effort to keep up with the nationwide demand.
“This should be flowing through soon,” said Erica.
The Barossa Nursery team have put a number of measures in place to help stop the spread of Covid-19, including the provision of more space for customers.
“This Thursday morning, but it’s usually on Wednesdays, we separate the new seedling stock into two areas, one in the seedling room and we make an area on the other side of the nursery to help with the social distancing rule of 1.5 metres.”
As for the seed range, Erica said stocks had plummeted and restocking to the level people are used to was not looking promising.
“Most of the seeds come from America,” she explained.
“We’ve been trying to get them in but we’ve been told we probably won’t get a full seed stand in until 2022.
“We always keep our stands nice and full. Daniel ordered 93 varieties of seeds recently and he got two.”
The demand for potting soil, mulch and fertiliser is also much higher than normal.
One and a half semi-trailer loads of potting soil arrived last week to top up depleting stocks which Erica said was closer to the amount usually only needed for Spring.
It’s a positive sign for the family owned business which the Federal Government has classed as an “essential service” for horticultural and mental health reasons.
Erica said she and her family are grateful for the support they are receiving from “loyal, local customers” who are filtering through the doors of their Nuriootpa premises, especially since regular customers from surrounding areas have been advised to avoid the Barossa.
“We look forward to more vegetable seedlings being available for you soon!”
