Burpee, the seed giant based in nearby Warminster, is being flooded with orders as the lack of produce on grocery shelves ignites people’s interest in home gardening, writes Alan Yu for the WHYY.

“We’re getting a huge amount of interest,” said George Ball, executive chairman of Burpee, “like a tsunami.”

Ball said he had already noticed spikes in seed sales in bad times, such as during the stock market crash in 1987 and the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. Still, the spike has never been as large and widespread as now.

He added that while the gardening business always used to grow during bad times and drop during good ones. This has been driven more to extremes over the last two decades.

“It has to be really bad to grow,” he said. ”Or it has to be really good … to substantially decline.”

And while the company is doing its best to keep up with demand, there is no way for it to immediately make more products.

“That is not something you just push a button,” said Ball. “I can’t overstate that enough, our business is based on biology.”

Read more about Burpee at the WHYY by clicking here.

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