O’FALLON, IL—A St. Louis area nursery says vegetable gardening has skyrocketed since the pandemic and it’s almost time to get your hands dirty.

What You Need To Know Before You Grow

  • Right now is a great time to do all your cold veggies including leafy greens like lettuce, cabbage and broccoli

  • Less resilient vegetables, fruits and most flowers should wait until at least April 15

  • Pansies are an option to plant for those wanting flowers in their garden right now

  • Gardening has boomed ever since the pandemic and hasn't shown signs of declining
  • Despite inflation, prices for gardening have yet to rise and a local nursery general manager doesn't anticipate that to change this year

“Ever since the COVID era, people have really spent a lot of times in their backyards,” said Andy Kloss, General Manager of Joe’s Market Basket. “They are really taking up gardening. Gardening has become a really, really, really big factor in our business. People really want the organic part of it. It could be fun; it can be frustrating but people really have kept up with that, kind of that flow from COVID and has continued.”

Kloss is preparing for the seasonal rush of green thumbs.

“Right now is a great time to do all your cold veggies. It can tolerate the frost that we still have coming and the colder overnight temperatures.”

As Spring slowly warms up, Kloss acknowledges some people have an itch to get started.

“People want to get the soil, get their fingers dirty and it’s safe to plant the lettuces, broccoli, all the good greenery stuff.”

Gardeners should wait on planting less resilient flowers and veggies until after April 15, stated Kloss.

“A lot of people are getting a little ahead of themselves. They’re wanting to do tomatoes and peppers and the warmer season stuff. You can start them inside right now.”

He advises once the low temperatures are consistently at least 40 degrees, it’ll be safe to plant everything else. However, if you’ve already planted, Kloss said not to fret and be prepared for frost.

“No worries, throw a bucket over them, throw some kind of cloth or something just to keep the frost off.”

While the frost will disappear soon, harsh winds are prevalent throughout spring. For those that recently planted trees, Kloss recommends a triangular-stake support system.

“Highly recommend any time you plant a tree, put a stake on it,” said Kloss. “Leave that stake on it for a year so you get a nice straight tree. It grows and once it’s rooted in, there shouldn’t be any problems after that.”

He also recommends going with a three-stake support system over simply one stake as it helps balance the young tree on each side and allows for correcting if the tree grows awkwardly. If the tree blows over, it’s not necessarily the end of the world as long as it remains intact.

“If it’s newly planted and it does blow over, it’s not really going to hurt the tree this early in the stage.”

He added to replant it, stake it again and watch it grow.

For those concerned about the effect of rising inflation and tariffs in relation to gardening, Kloss said since they've already acquired their product to sell, he doesn't anticipate prices to go up until at least next season.