Coronavirus panic buying takes root at nurseries selling fruit and vegetable plants and seeds – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

First it was the panic buying of toilet rolls, then staples like rice, pasta and meat — now it’s spread to the nursery industry as demand for edible plants and seeds heats up due to coronavirus.

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Andrew Clarke runs a nursery south of Hobart and said he had never seen anything like the past few days in 30 years of selling, growing and advising about plants.

“The seedling area and vegetables have been completely depleted over the weekend and we’ve sold in a week what we typically sell over a month,” he said.

“Consumers are certainly showing more interest in self-sufficient gardening, and they’re also looking at projects to keep them busy if there are further lockdown regulations.

“We’re in constant contact with nurseries across Australia, and the increased demand for edibles is both Australia and New Zealand-wide.”

A lot of people who bought plants at the nursery were not your typical core gardeners who had been growing vegetables, herbs and fruit trees for years.

“It’s been really good to see beginner gardeners interested in growing edibles and self-sustainable gardening, and we’ve been helping with advice on what type of vegetables will grow at this time of year,” Mr Clarke said.

“The run on plants will mean there could be some restrictions over the next week or two while we wait for fresh supplies from the wholesalers.”

Michael Alderman went to a nursery in Melbourne’s inner-north at the weekend to buy vegetable seedlings, but they were sold out — so he bought a bunch of seeds.

While he was a regular backyard gardener, he said the coronavirus situation had motivated him to get on with his autumn gardening plans.

“We have the panic buying and the isolation in mind as well; the lack of vegetables and supplies in the stores is definitely in our heads,” he said.

“It’s more important to us now and we’ve definitely got the virus in mind, because we can’t buy a lot of the vegetables in the shops.”

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Claire Loughnan is another keen gardener who found the vegetable seedlings sold out when she went to her local nursery in Melbourne.

“I was actually surprised that there was so much that was not available,” she said.

“Really, there’s just no vegetables left that I could see; there’s spring onions and aside from that it’s all herbs.”

She said the increased interest in backyard food production was a small silver lining of the virus crisis.

“I think it’s great actually, and I think it’s a good way of being self-sufficient and eating better food.”

Seedfreaks is an online shop selling heirloom seeds from Geeveston in Tasmania’s far south, and co-owner Linda Cockburn said the business had increased twentyfold in the past week.

“We are being inundated with orders from across Australia, and many of those are from new gardeners eager to grow their own vegetables like spinach, broad beans, radish and all sorts of lettuce,” she said.

“It’s also the peak time for collecting seeds in the garden, and we grow all our seeds, so it’s a real challenge to cope with processing, packing and sending off orders around the country.

“We also need to make sure the new gardeners have knowledge about the seeds and how and when to plant them properly so they end up as green thumbs and not black thumbs.”

In the Riverina region of New South Wales, one nursery said it had sold out of vegetables and in recent days had sold more seed packets than it normally would in a year.

Meanwhile, fifth-generation Bendigo nurseryman Lee McDonald said the past couple of days at work had been “unprecedented”.

“We’re down to four punnets of onions and about 10 punnets of radicchio, and that’s about it for the vegetables — the packets of seeds have just disappeared off the shelves,” he said.

The bigger nursery chains have also seen shelves of vegetables stripped bare and huge sales of seeds and fruit trees to consumers desperate for products to grow and eat from their backyard gardens.

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