While we all wait to see how the Health Care Reform Act will affect us some interesting tidbits are sneaking out. One such tidbit has nothing to do with health care reform (big surprise). According to The Wall Street Journal, “the law also requires all businesses to issue IRS 1099 forms to document every business-to-business transaction of $600 or more. To someone who’s never run a business, this may sound like nothing. But Congress hopes to raise $17 billion in added tax revenues and fees from this new mandate. That’s hardly nothing.”
Can someone tell me how this improves our health care? This is huge! Filling out a 1099 form every time we purchase stuff to sell at the nursery. As the article states, if you don’t own a small business it may seem like a small deal, but virtually every time we purchase something for resale it comes to more than $600. Good grief! Running a small business is difficult enough without having to fill out a government form every time we buy something for resale.
This is another example of our present government at work. Work on health care reform, but while we are at it let’s screw all the hardworking small businesses that account for so much of our economy. As if it wasn’t hard enough to make a profit lets add a layer of government over site to the equation. Lets make the day just a little longer filling out government forms so we can really go home tired at the end of the day. Of course we will need to hire a few thousand extra IRS agents to wade through this tsunami of paper work. More government!
This is what happens when the people who wrote the law can’t even tell us what’s in it. We get the pleasure of seeing bits of it float to the surface from time to time. If as a small business owner you wondered how this health care bill would affect you, we are starting to find out. It’s not pretty.
Wired.com has a Geek Gardening guide to Domestic Terraforming. It’s fun to see how gardening, ooops I mean domestic terraforming is viewed by the geeky crowd. As the article states, “Gardeners are among the world’s most charming snobs. Rightly so: As with music and mathematics, the more you know, the more elegant your work. Erudition is valued, and so is a smattering of pretension. If you are a geek looking to put down roots, welcome to gardening. We offer you common ground. Think of it as localized terraforming, if that helps.”
The Transatlantic Plantsman, Graham Rice has a post today titled “Don’t buy hostas from Home Depot“. Graham bemoans the fact that he “found their hosta labeling in complete chaos.” He continues, “even allowing for the fact that all the plants were very soft and had clearly been forced, and for the fact that the foliage of young plants is often not typical of mature specimens - well, it’s entirely possible that none of the names are right!”
This is really not surprising. As a horticulturalist Graham knows the importance of plant names and keeping them straight. The problem is the corporate mindset at the box stores could care less. As in my last post concerning the re-emergence of tomato blight the box stores attitude is, it’s not our concern but our suppliers. Concerning letting the customers know about tomato blight and the possible control methods available the answer is, “the grower, Bonnie, conducts quality control at its centers.” I am sure the answer to the hosta mislabeling would also be, “it’s our growers responsibility, not ours.”
This seems to be a trend at the mass merchants. They are just conduits for plants that are grown by others. If there is a problem they just ship the stuff back to the grower and don’t pay. It’s called pay at scan. Invasive plants, sick plants, and mis-labeled plants are the growers problem, not the garden center at the box store. Of course the average customer at the box store could care less about these issues. Just give me a pretty plant to stick in my yard.
I am well aware that what we are saying here will have virtually no impact on sales or customers at the mass merchants. Our local Home Depot is most likely the single largest supplier of plant material in our area. On a typical weekend it is packed with eager shoppers just dying to plant their tomato upside down, buy shade plants (they’re called hostas?) or get some bougainvillea (an expensive annual in our area). Oh well, as the operations manager at Lowes commented, “it’s business as usual in the garden department… we have people literally waiting for the [plant] truck to show up.”
According to LSUAgcenter.com “Scientists at the LSU AgCenter recently confirmed the presence of late blight on tomatoes in home gardens in Terrebonne, Lafayette, Livingston and Tangipahoa parishes. Symptoms include black lesions on stems and petioles, blackening of the fruit, and dark, dead areas on the foliage.” Guess where they infection is coming from? “‘The disease is probably being introduced on infected transplants, so be sure to check tomato plants for symptoms before you buy them,’ said LSU AgCenter plant pathologist Don Ferrin.”
If you remember last year the tomato season was a disaster due to late blight. According to newsday.com, “late blight, the aggressive plant pathogen that ravaged the 2009 tomato crop in backyards and some commercial farms across Long Island and the northeast, is highly likely to return in 2010, a top plant pathologist said last week.”
This is important stuff, as people become dependent on what they grow to feed themselves and family. “Nick Ranieri, 70, of Mattituck, describes last year’s blight. ‘I have never seen such a thing happening in my garden,’” said the retired electrician, an Italian immigrant who has farmed and gardened all his life. ‘It was very sad, the saddest thing.’ His crop of 40 plants was wiped out, a major disruption of the family lifestyle that depends on canned tomatoes through the winter.”
We we’re on top of this story last year. According to newsday.com, the blight “was blamed on mass market retail stores that bought plants from wholesale growers, some from the south where late blight pathogens can winter over.” Bonnie Plants which is the supplier to Home Depot, Lowes, and other mass merchants was cited as a possible source for the infection. “But Lois Chaplin, director of marketing for Bonnie Plants, the Union Springs, Ala., company that supplies big retailers like The Home Depot and Lowe’s, questioned that association. ‘Good growers always have precautions in place,’ to control disease, she said. ‘There are things that happen in nature we can’t control, but any good grower will have programs in place to prevent the problem.’”
As a nurseryperson and gardener here is what really bugs me. According to the newsday.com article, “Jim Trowbridge, operations manager at the Lowe’s home center in Medford, said it’s business as usual in the garden department. Tomato plants and seeds are already on shelves and staffers will recommend fungicides as a preventive measure, if customers ask. The stores aren’t taking any drastic measures on late blight prevention, Trowbridge said, noting that the grower, Bonnie, conducts quality control at its centers.” Well that makes us feel better. “‘Sales have already taken off,’ said Trowbridge. ‘We have people literally waiting for the [plant] truck to show up.’”
So there is no reason to educate people on what turned out to be a disastrous tomato season for thousands of people? It’s “business as usual” at the box stores and Bonnie Plants? No handouts or informational literature to help all the new and returning gardeners about a serious pathogen that could infect their vegetable harvest this year? No advice on how to deal with this unless people ask? Why doesn’t Bonnie plants, or the box stores put together some informational handouts that are at least posted near the vegetable plants?
“Ranieri, the Mattituck gardener, is a case in point. Last month, he planted potatoes from last year’s backyard harvest. Told that Cornell advised against it, he said, “‘I wish I had known that three weeks ago.’” Yes, if Mr. Ranieri had bought his tomatoes or other vegetable plants from us, or another nursery that cared he would have been given this information. It’s about having successful educated gardeners , not making a buck and “business as usual.”
This is not just selling plants and moving on. People are starting to depend on their gardens for food. This is agriculture, not just a back yard garden. As suppliers, the box stores and their growers should be doing a better job of educating their customers. Remember this next time someone say’s, It doesn’t matter where you buy your plants!
Jackson & Perkin’s and their parent company Park Seeds has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. We haven’t bought from either company for years. I remember that our sales rep for Jackson and Perkin’s use to drive a Jaguar when he made sales calls. I always thought when it came to sales people it was better to drive a car that was equal to or less expensive than the customers cars.
With major wholesale nurseries like Hines, Bordier’s, El Modeno, Jackson Perkins, etc., going bankrupt and having to reorganize it’s time to recognize the small garden centers and wholesale nurseries that have stuck it out without going bankrupt. Quietly paying their bills and getting up to head to work each day. Bankruptcy happens, and in the business world it is sometimes the only way forward. Get it over with and move on. If you find yourself in that situation it is some comfort knowing that even the big boys with all the talent and assets they posses can find them selves in a bind at times.
