It’s official: I was wrong. In a post on this site on December 28th, I ventured a guess that there would not be a seed shortage in 2021. Because, I said, seed companies had a whole year since 2020’s pandemic-driven rush to plan for unprecedented demand. I also thought seed could be diverted from supplies usually sold to commercial farmers (whose demand is down during COVID). But I guessed wrong. Quite a few companies are running far behind, overwhelmed with orders, and/or running out of stock on many items. Others appear to be in fine shape.
To be clear: the world is not short on vegetable and flower seed. There’s plenty. But, at some companies, there’s just not enough seed sitting in small packets and positioned to sell it for home gardeners. In other cases, the seed is there, but it’s sitting in a backlog of more orders than available staff can possibly process in a reasonable amount of time.
Don’t Harass Your Favorite Seed Company
This situation creates a terrible self-reinforcing cycle: the slower that orders ship out, the more customers demand answers to “where’s my seed?” Providing a huge amount of communicative customer service drains staff resources. Then, orders may ship out even slower. Companies are trying all sorts of strategies to avoid entering this cycle, or to extract themselves from it once it appears. Don’t contribute to the cycle: if you’ve ordered from a company that becomes overwhelmed, trust the fulfillment times they announce, and only bug them if they are breaking their own promised timelines.
Why is Seed Shipping So Slow Right Now?
There are three reasons seed companies are falling behind. First, the year that has passed since pandemic gardening became a thing in Spring 2020 just wasn’t enough time. Seed production relationships are built slowly, and smaller companies need more than a year to increase their bulk seed inventory after it has taken a big hit.
Second, orders were at record levels last year and they’ve only gone up. There was a jump in home gardening interest in 2020 which I thought might abate once people realized grocery stores weren’t about to run completely out of food. But the jump is still here, and growing.
Third, the pandemic’s impact on the seed supply chain has created bottlenecks. Many seed companies rely on some other company to test their seed, a second to print their seed packets, and maybe a third to fill their seed packets. If any one of these supplies is overloaded, and can’t just add staff or shifts due to social distancing, the seed retailers have to wait.
Taking Stock: Who’s Got Seed?
In December and January, I wrote a series of three posts, each profiling six interesting seed companies. Some I know well, some were new to me, but all are interesting to me. All have some unique squash seed offerings.
To research this post, I’ve returned to all 18 seed company websites and looked at the front-page notices and warnings about shipping times. I also checked social media. Many garden seed companies are running far behind their typical shipping schedules. Some have paused or ended orders for the year. Others are, as far as I can tell, engaged in business as usual or simply keeping up with the rush. Here’s the rundown:
Johnny’s Selected Seeds
Orders paused until February 18th. Around the beginning of February, Johnny’s website announced closure to all orders except those from commercial farmers. Home garden orders are slated to resume February 18th (tomorrow as I write this post). “Due to increased volume and our ongoing COVID-19 precautions, we are temporarily unable to accept home garden seed orders.” I did place an order from Johnny’s in December, which I received promptly and accurately. Update: Johnny’s re-opened to home gardeners on the 18th, but just for a day, closing again on the 19th for further catch-up. They also state: “we’ve created new jobs by building night and weekend shifts into our fulfilment process, while maintaining a safe, physically distanced working environment.” The fact that they are adding new shifts and still running 7-10 days backlog speaks to the explosion in order volume.
Kitazawa Seed Co.
Business as usual. Kitazawa’s site offers two-day turnaround. Upon clicking on a random sample of a few items, all were in stock. I placed a small order from Kitazawa in early January, which I received promptly and accurately. For some reason, I’m very excited to grow adzuki beans for the first time in 2021. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Native Seeds/SEARCH
As of today, February 17th, Native Seeds’ website asks customers to allow 2-3 weeks for any orders containing seed, due to overwhelming demand.
Rupp Seeds
All systems go. Rupp Seeds does not offer an online shopping cart, so I couldn’t test seed availability. But neither their site nor their Facebook page mentions order back-ups or supply issues. This makes sense as Rupp is primarily a seller to farmers, with their smaller packets to home gardeners a secondary offering.
Seeds from Italy
Seeds from Italy states on their front page: “Shipping Delays: We currently have a 14-day backlog; that is, we will ship your order approximately 14 business days after you place it. The US Postal Service is also experiencing delays.”
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange appears to be in good shape, successfully weathering the storm of any great increase in orders. I don’t see any warning of delays on their website or social media, and quick perusal of the catalog shows a normal amount of out of stock items for this time of year.
Two Seeds in a Pod
“We are overwhelmed with orders!” states the message at the top of Two Seeds in a Pod’s website, “Shipping time is now 5-7 days. Thanks for your support!” I made a small order from this company in January, just to follow up on my excitement about stumbling upon them while writing my profile posts. I received the order in full and in just about the stated timeline.
A.P. Whaley Seed Company
A.P. Whaley Seed Company is facing “unavoidable delays” and tells customers at top of their website to expect a shipping window of 3-4 weeks. They have ceased taking phone orders and kindly ask customers to limit product and status inquiries so that staff aren’t diverted to taking phone calls at the same time they’re dealing with the huge demand.
Stokes Seeds (suspended small packet sales early in winter to adjust to a merger, not because of demand)
The Plant Good Seed Company
The Plant Good Seed Company gives a 2-3 day turnaround time for current orders. In a post on Tumblr (shared on Twitter), owner Quin Shakra explains that there is a modest level of out of stock items, some that are “truly out” an some that are just waiting to be packaged. A link is provided to a spreadsheet of out of stock items. I made a small order from this company in December, which I received in full and promptly, including the fun squash seed saving zine that I just had to have!
High Mowing Organic Seeds
High Mowing links a helpful COVID-19 FAQs page, which addresses questions including “why are so many items out of stock?” (suppliers are moving slowly, but there’s still a lot of good stuff in catalog) and “what’s the current turnaround time for seed orders?” (ship within ten days). HMOS has an active social media presence across several platforms, and all seem to be churning along with the usual late winter messages.
Twilley Seeds
It’s a little hard to discern what’s going on with great value seed seller Twilley. You can’t order online from Twilley in normal times. There was a Facebook post in late January stating that the company is overwhelmed with orders, which seems to be a favorite phrase in 2021, and asking customers to use email or fax rather than phone.
Fedco Seeds
Fedco Seeds has been my primary seed supplier for many years, though I do get around a bit. I ordered from Fedco in December and received my full bounty with reasonable turnaround.
Since that time, I’ve watched Fedco get as buried as anyone. First, they announced a system in which orders would be, in a sense, metered: the system opened every day at noon, and orders were accepted up to a number that could be reasonably handled, then the order system would shut down again. At some point in the last few weeks, Fedco then established a waiting list, and put up this message on their website:
“Attention! Due to very high demand, Fedco Seeds is accepting new orders for vegetable, flower, and herb seeds only from customers on our waiting list. Please view your cart in order to sign up for the waiting list. (Read more about the waiting list and current limits on ordering…) Due to high order volume and shipping company overload, it may take 4–6 weeks for orders to arrive. We appreciate your patience in this exceptional season.”
Adaptive Seeds
Visiting Adaptive Seeds’ site brings up another example like Johnny’s: closure to all new orders, until February 19th (two days from now as I write this post).
The statement continues: “Due to unprecedented demand we’ve had to limit the number of orders we receive. Order fulfillment times are 1-3 weeks. Please sign up for our newsletter to be notified of any changes, announcements, etc. Thank you for your patience and support!”
Territorial Seed Company
Territorial is diligently maintaining a special 2021 order terms and conditions update page on their website. Their last post, on February 5th, states: ” For all in stock orders, orders have been consistently shipping within a 72 business hour window over the last 2 weeks. Our 3 different shipping teams and 2 seed packing teams have been working feverishly to ensure our orders are getting filled and shipped out as fast as we can. We hope to have it down to a 36-48 hour window by next week. Order with confidence!“
Jordan Seeds
Jordan Seeds is a small regional company focused on farmer sales. It’s hard to tell from their website, but it’s unlikely that ordering is impacted by the pandemic home gardening surge.
Victory Seeds
Victory Seeds has posted a special Pandemic Ordering Terms page on their site, asking customers to expect 10-15 business days turnaround, but allow 18 days. Taking winter squash as an example, a normal number of items appears to be sold out until 2022.
Seed Savers Exchange
Similar to what Fedco tried earlier in the season, SSE has put up a website message establishing a metered ordering system. “We are currently accepting new orders, but because of high order volume and COVID-19 safety measures on-site, we have limited the number of new orders we will accept each day. Once our daily limit is reached, we will begin taking new orders the following day at 8:30 AM CT.”
An additional message asks customers to allow 30 day turnaround, and to not call for updates if it has been less than 30 days.