Gateway to gardening

Millennials may be the generation of tweeters, pinners and texters, but when it comes to gardening, they’re old-fashioned. Many are starting out not with a bed of annuals but with containers of vegetables and herbs. Growing your own food is quickly gaining popularity, and edibles, as many garden centers have discovered, are what younger customers want. The category has remained strong throughout the past couple of years for garden centers, and there are more varieties than ever to meet the preferences of all palates.

Thanks to the wide array of cooking shows and recipe blogs, people are also using their garden bounty in their kitchens, preparing cuisines from all over the world. They’re looking for those rare herbs, spices and vegetables to complement their culinary adventures, ingredients that are tough to find at grocery stores. And that’s where grower-retailers come in.

To get the full story, we turned to two independent grower-retailers who offer an expansive array of edibles. Hoen’s Garden Center & Landscaping in Holland, Ohio, a stop on the 2013 OFA Short Course Garden Center Tour, sells more than 100 varieties of herbs, from the tried-and-true to the absolutely wild. We also visited Reems Creek Nursery in Weaverville, N.C., which has been growing and selling edibles for more than 30 years, including more than 50 varieties of tomatoes and 30 peppers.

On the next few pages, we share their insights about the hottest new (and old) varieties, trends they’re seeing and advice they have for other grower-retailers looking to boost their edible plant sales.

Spicing things up in Ohio

by Karen E. Varga

Herbs are hot this year at Hoen’s Garden Center & Landscaping in Holland, Ohio. In fact, co-owner Theresa Hoen says that 2013 has been the biggest year so far for their herb department in the six years that they’ve been developing their selection. Hoen’s was one of the stops on this year’s OFA Short Course Garden Center Tour, so we got to see their selection firsthand.

Basil and chervil and thyme — oh my!
Hoen’s is getting to be well-known in the area for their extensive herb department. Theresa and co-owner and husband Bob Hoen sell more than 100 herb varieties, including some rare and unusual, and multiple varieties of some of the more popular herbs. So far, the most popular herbs have been the standards: chives, basil, parsley and rosemary, with sweet basil leading the pack. When we visited in July, they were still fully stocked and selling quite a few herb plants.

For those home beer brewers, they sell hops, which are not found in your typical herb line-up in most garden centers. For foodies and lovers of certain ethnic dishes, they offer herbs such as lime balm (as opposed to the more commonly known lemon balm) and chervil.

Theresa says that they want to be known as the go-to store for herb plants, offering something for everyone. Customers often call the store to ask about the availability of certain herbs, and Hoen’s keeps a record of those requests. If they’re getting repeated requests for a variety they don’t currently carry, they can consider starting to grow it in their greenhouse. “We have a book [of requests],” says Theresa. “We’ll research it and see if it’s worth getting. We’ve tried to make that our niche, having the unique and different, so we take those things seriously.”

Some like it hot … or at least well-seasoned
The Hoens have noticed that as they expand their herb department, an increasingly diverse customer base has been buying them. “We try to accommodate the different ethnic tastes and styles of cooking,” says Theresa. “That inspires Bob when he orders all of the herb seeds.” She has noticed a significant number of customers looking to cook Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisines, which require ingredients they can’t necessarily find in the grocery store.

Another significant group of spice-seeking customers are people in their late 20s and 30s, especially those interested in cooking and growing their own. “A lot of the younger generation is getting into herbs as well, and growing their own food and seasonings to go along with it,” Theresa says. Some of those customers are also interested in organic growing.

Do you want to sell more herbs?
For those grower-retailers thinking about starting up or adding depth to their herb section, one of the first things they have to consider is whether they will be starting the plants themselves.

In Hoen’s case, they start almost all of their green goods in-house, which has been advantageous for keeping up with demand.

“The turnover with herbs is relatively quick,” she says. “Once you sow the seeds, they’ll take off and we can keep it fully loaded and stocked.” Bob, who is responsible for growing the herbs, is constantly planting more herbs to replenish their supply. However, they have occasionally run out of the less popular herbs.

On a trip to Belgium a few years back, Theresa and Bob visited an herb farm that potted their herbs differently than they were accustomed to seeing.

“Instead of putting a few seeds in a pot, they planted multiple to make it really full,” says Theresa. “That makes a substantial difference in the perception of value.” Herb plants in 4-inch pots sell for $3.29 regular price at the store.

From salsas to gourmet pastas
Cross-merchandising has helped Hoen’s sell more of both herbs and vegetable plants. One of their more popular packages are their mixed 6-packs of herbs and vegetables. “We felt that it was important to couple veggies with our herb department and really focus on providing everything that’s needed,” Theresa says.

Hoen’s offers a Mexican salsa garden package, for example, which might include a Roma tomato, peppers, cilantro and other herbs, as well as an Italian garden 6-pack with everything needed for a pasta dish.

Get the word out
No matter how fantastic your herb quality and offerings are, if no one knows about them, no one will come in to buy them.

Last year the garden center hosted an herbs workshop with a local chef to get the word out. The chef made several dishes using some of the herbs, and gave customers some recipes. Theresa says that the event was so well-attended they’re planning to host it again this year.

In addition, to connect with those 20- to 30-somethings mentioned earlier, they’ve turned to social media. Recently, Theresa and her daughter set up a small photo shoot at her home to showcase a sweet basil plant alongside a container of finished pesto to show what could be made with it.

Later they published the photo to their Facebook page. “It’s all about educating people,” Theresa says. “We’re going to sell more if we educate people.”

The heat is on in North Carolina

by Michelle Simakis
 

Novices whose hands have not touched soil since childhood are starting to drop by Reems Creek Nursery in Weaverville, N.C. Susan Reavis, who runs the business with her family, says the gateway to gardening for them is vegetables.

“People in their 30s with young children are more interested in the types of food that they’re eating and that they’re feeding their children,” Reavis says. “It used to be that we had a lot of the older people who had farmed all of their lives come in, and unfortunately we’re seeing fewer older people.”

But the tough-to-reach Millennials are filling the gap and looking for tomatoes, and increasingly peppers.

“The [edibles] category continues to be very strong. We have just about maximized our growing capacity because we grow our own,” Reavis says. “We actually added a new heated greenhouse this year to help with that space crunch. We’re growing vegetables using an organic fertilizer, so we wanted to separate them from the flowers we grow that we fertilize conventionally.”

Reems Creek has 30 different varieties of peppers – half hot, half sweet – on hand.

They’ve always been fully stocked with peppers, but people are starting to ask for the hottest of the hot.

“We’re seeing an increase in the really, really hot peppers being more popular. Ghost peppers and scorpion peppers are two really hot varieties,” she says.

In June, they sold out of the ghost peppers.

“The seeds aren’t as readily available,” says Reavis, who has been offering this pepper plant for three years.

With new trends come new customers and new behavoirs. Reavis says she’s seeing more people, but they’re starting small.

“We used to sell vegetables in the four packs, and people would buy several. It wasn’t uncommon for people to buy several flats at a time,” Reavis says. “We’re seeing more customers, and they’re buying fewer plants. It’s gone from one person coming in to buying two or three flats to one person coming in and buying a few plants each.”

Unusual colors are another aspect of peppers that catches customers’ eyes.

“The purple and orange peppers are really popular, too, like Purple Beauty and Orange Valencia.”

She credits the increase to people’s interest in home-grown produce as well as more cooks willing to take culinary risks and try new things.

“Because there are more varieties out there, people are able to find certain flavors.”
 

Tomatoes reign king

by Michelle Simakis

When the economy tanked toward the end of 2008, Susan Reavis, co-owner of the family-run Reems Creek Nursery in Weaverville, N.C., felt the impact about a year later.

Sales in most areas dropped, but there was one outlier – vegetables. Numbers were actually up from the previous year, and the most popular of them all was, and still is, tomatoes.

“We’ve been growing vegetable starts since the early ‘80s,” Reavis says. “Way back then, there weren’t as many different varieties of tomatoes available.”

Reems Creek got its start in her parents’ front yard in the late ‘70s, and the nursery now grows 75 percent of its vegetables, annuals and perennials on the 3 acre lot where it all started. The retail portion is on about 2.5 acres and primarily sells green goods.

They offer 50 to 55 different tomatoes. Yellow, red, cherry, beefsteak and host of other variations on the juicy red fruit are displayed in rows at the nursery, which is surrounded by the beautiful mountains of North Carolina.

Back to the old-school
Twenty to 25 of the tomatoes Reavis offers are heirloom varieties, a specific type her customers are increasingly requesting.

“Some of the varieties that we grow now are heirloom types and local to the area, and we have people who save seeds for us,” she says. “Heirlooms started becoming a buzzword about seven or eight years ago.”

Hanging tough
Reavis also strives to carry varieties that are disease resistant. Spring brought many rainy days, and more moisture means more blight.

“There have been a few varieties, like Iron Lady, developed that are resistant to blight, and that’s been important to us to find good-tasting, blight-resistant tomatoes,” Reavis says. “There’s one called Mountain Pride that’s very popular. It’s local and was developed through North Carolina State University.”

Her most popular varieties include Golden Jubilee, a yellow, pear-shaped tomato and Sweet Million, which produces sweet cherry fruits. She’s also had more people ask her for tomatoes that can be used to make paste for sauce.

Some of the old-fashioned varieties like beefsteak and Better Boy are also performing strong sales wise. Her customers want to pick their own produce, and demand is holding steady. “The Asheville area is very organic, and people are taking the time to educate themselves on their food supply,” she says.

Expanding your edibles
Reavis offers two pieces of advice for other garden centers wanting to beef up their edibles departments. One, make sure the plants, whether you grow them on your own or get them from another grower, are high quality and try to find disease-resistant varieties.

“Our staff grows a lot of their own gardens, and they will provide feedback on how their plants are doing,” she says. “If someone grows a certain variety and it tastes bad, we won’t grow that one next year.”

Two, offer the right amount of options. A few years ago Reavis and the staff wrote down the vegetables customers were requesting, and noted those that weren’t selling well. Though a tomato by any other name may be as sweet, catchy titles also seem to attract her customers.

“A local heirloom variety that we have is called Granny Bradley, and it’s popular because Bradley is a common name around here. Another one is the Christmas Grape. You visualize little bitty, bright, shiny red tomatoes.”