In the Spring when the effects of the pandemic began to heighten, citizens went into panic mode due to America's food supply chain uncertainty. This event led to over buying of essential items and limited food stocks. When families realized that they may not be able to acquire the necessary foods in order to feed themselves, their thoughts turned to gardening.
As I have stated before my family owns a lawn, garden, and feed store in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. We sell a variety of items ranging from feed and hay to lawn mowers, trimmers, and garden supplies. We had become worried about the effect that COVID-19 would have on our local business. Thankfully our business was able to stay open, unlike many other small business in our town, which was a true blessing. Little did we know was that it was going to be one of our biggest years yet. We have a greenhouse on our farm where we raise garden plants to sell at our store. This year we raised 10,000 plants and they were all bought in as little as two months. I can remember loading a gooseneck cattle trailer full of plants almost every night because we had sold so many plants that our racks needed to be restocked. All while selling out of plants, our seed supply was also being diminished. Year after year my Dad has to calculate to see how much stock he thinks we will need for the next year in order to have an adequate supply to sell. When he planned for this year he knew it was going to be our biggest sales year yet, but not to this degree. Only by the middle of spring we had sold all of our plants and seed and we were turning customers away because we didn't have any more, my Father tried to call all of the seed companies he could to try to find more. Unfortunately, there was no more to be given because the demand for garden supplies were astonishing. So, we sold all the seed we had left and we were grateful for the sales year that we didn't think we would have.
After people raise their gardens they have to have a way to preserve their harvest so many people turn to canning. Crazy enough now that many people had raised gardens, there was also a limited supply of canning supplies. Usually you will see supplies like jars, lids, rings, canning salt, and mixes in all kinds of stores like Walmart, Kroger, and many small gardening businesses but this year that wasn't the case. Many of the factories that make these supplies had to shut down because of the pandemic. Since there was a high demand and a shortage at the same time there wasn't any canning supplies to be found. Our business usually has a stock of the supplies but after the first month or two of harvest our shelves were also bare. Our family was lucky because we got the supplies from our business, but we still had to resort to freezing some of our vegetables because we ran out of supplies.
Although COVID-19 has been a burden for many, it has turned out well for my family in the long run. We have had a great year as far as our business is concerned, but we have also had extra time to devote to increasing our garden capacity and our harvest in our pantry. We canned over a hundred quarts of beans, 10 quarts of corn, 15 quarts of pickles, and got about 150 pounds of potatoes that we canned some of and also stored in our cellar. In addition my family harvested squash, zucchini, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, and egg plant that we just ate without preserving. As well as increasing our chicken flock in order to have eggs on hand instead of purchasing them from the store. This food supply will hold our family of four for about a year until we raise our garden again. The shut down gave many families the opportunity to get outside and learn how to grow their own food without having to rely upon the markets and stores which really warms a person's heart to see them learning skills that humans have forgotten about.
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