It began with toilet paper and sanitiser — now demand across Otago and Southland has moved to cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and silver beet.
Public demand for winter vegetable seedlings is not quite at panic levels but Evandale Gardens, of Invercargill — the South’s biggest wholesale producer of young vegetable plants — has been flooded with orders from retailers in the week since Covid-19 really hit the headlines.
General manager of plant production Nathan Piggott said the ‘‘big surge’’ had never before been seen at this time of year.
‘‘[On Thursday] alone, it was five times the amount of vegetable seedlings that we shipped out to our retailers and customers.
‘‘That home, self-sufficiency demand has skyrocketed.’’
Mr Piggott said it would be ‘‘a little bit challenging’’ keeping up with demand in the short term and he warned of shortages for some vegetable plants over the next three or four weeks.
However, he urged gardeners not to panic.
‘‘Give us three weeks and we will be able to keep up with the demand.
‘‘We’ve already reacted; we’ve got more stock coming through.’’
Mr Piggott said even lettuces were selling quite well and berry fruit plants and rhubarb were ‘‘moving at higher rates than normal’’.
Evandale supplies, among others, Mitre 10, the Warehouse and Nichol’s garden centres.
Evandale and Nichol’s owner Allan Dippie said he saw the same thing happen during the global financial crisis.
‘‘People tend to get back to nature; they get back to gardening.
‘‘It becomes a safe place and a haven for many people.’’
‘‘Certainly, that’s our experience.’’
Although sales for the week to Thursday were four times those of the previous week, Mr Dippie did not believe gardeners were panicking.
‘‘We’re not having toilet paper-type fights in garden centres.’’
Nichol’s Garden Centre Dunedin day manager Craig Inch said he had never previously experienced such high demand for vegetable seedlings and several hundred punnets of them, including cabbage and cauliflower, had been sold since the past weekend.
Demand had been particularly strong since last Sunday, and, given concerns about coronavirus, shoppers seemed keen not only to grow their own vegetables, but also to know how they had been grown, he said.
