Farm Garden Centers capture “Back Yard” Garden Customers
April is National Gardening month. It’s no surprise that the media has paid attention to MIchelle Obama’s newest project – The While House garden. In a recent interview with Oprah, Michelle Obama wants to use the garden as “point of education, to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet.”
I believe all of this great media news, and increased consumer interest in local and fresh foods will translate into increased sales at the retail garden centers located on so many of our North American agritourism farms. Recently, I’ve visited a few farm garden centers across the country and found that sales of seeds, vegetable plants and gardening supplies are increasing over 2008.
In 2008, per the National Gardening Association, the number of people growing vegetables increased 10 percent over previous years and they anticipate that the number will increase by 20% in 2009.
So, if you have a farm garden center – please don’t ignore this category of purchaser. While the number of back yard food gardeners may be growing, we certainly know as farmer’s that they will still need our expertise in how to grow a good crop.
This spring, I believe farm market garden centers have a tremendous advantage over the “box store” garden centers because we do know how to grow fruits and vegetables and we have plenty of these types of plants for sale. Use your specialized knowledge to help your customers plan their own back yard garden and your garden center sales should soar!
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