Seed Savers Exchange has been swamped with orders

Posted: Mon, Apr 6, 2020 2:24 PM

It's not unusual for Decorah's Seed Savers Exchange to have increased sales this time of year. Up to March 11th, numbers were running pretty close to the level of demand in 2019. But as COVID-19 cases began to spike in the US, so did the sales for Seed Savers.

Marketing and Communications Director Roger Hartwell reports, "We stopped taking new seed orders on March 27th at 4:30 p.m., and at the end of March, our sales were 92 percent up over March 2019."

The increased sales along with the safety recommendations for social distancing from the CDC means SSE has had to rearrange their whole operation. Anyone that can work from home is doing just that. For those who must come in, the normal seed order packing location has been broken out into two locations to promote the social distancing as well.

With the up in demand, SSE has added seasonable positions to help and might add even more if needed. Hartwell notes that new positions will only be added if they can maintain the guidelines that are in place for social distancing. He continues, "We are currently running two shifts so that we can pack seeds long, with more staff, but still maintain the 6 foot social distancing recommendation."

Extra hands are definitely needed as Hartwell admits that SSE is having a bit of trouble keeping up with the orders. He says, "As of last night we confirmed that orders placed before March 31st would have a 2 to 4 week delay in shipping from March 31st."

At this point, SSE does not have an estimated time when they will start taking orders again. Their goal right now is to get as many of the seeds into the hands of gardeners as they can. Hartwell explains, "We also want to make sure we get the seeds to them in a timely manner for them to plant this season."

For those readers wondering what seeds have been the highest in demand during this global pandemic, Hartwell had this to say: "I was expecting tomatoes and peppers to have major increases in orders, but they were only up around 7 percent from March 2019 sales." Instead, the biggest gains in sales were in cool-season vegetables and staple crops, such as leafy greens, cabbage, and cauliflower. And coming in first place for biggest increase in sales (drum roll, please): broccoli. Its seeds were up over 60 percent from March 2019.

Although orders are currently not accepted, more information about Seed Savers Exchange can be found here. Included on their website is a list of Seed Rack partners where seeds might still be available for gardeners on the hunt for growing materials.