WINSLOW, Maine — With carts and hand-held code readers, the pickers work the warehouse aisles at Johnny’s Selected Seeds, filling orders from customers all over North America and some from beyond.
They choose from some 3,000 seed varieties grown by Johnny’s which has become a leading producer and seller of seeds for farmers and gardeners.
Winter and early spring are the busy seasons at Johnny’s, and the 50-year-old company started in Albion in 1973 has had a very busy few months.
"January is a hot month, also February and March," Jeff Hedge, operations manager at Johnny’s warehouse, said.
He described the first three months of the year as often hectic.
"It gets packed enough that it's hard to navigate up and down [the aisles] during peak season. Our aisles get full of carts [and] we max out the floor space to get all the customer deliveries."
That work has increased noticeably. A Johnny’s spokesman quoted the company CEO and said business has grown 50 percent in the past five years.
Customers ordering seeds or tools might be surprised to see the high-tech warehouse work that goes into filling orders, but they may be more aware of the research work that goes on year-round. Johnny's has plants growing in multiple greenhouses, even in late winter and early spring.
Greenhouse manager Pam Morin showed off crates filled with blooming tulips and others with plants not yet large enough to blossom.
"I have the best job in the world," Morin said, "And I hate winter, so it's very good for me at this time of year to see all this color."
The greenhouses are filled with flowers and vegetables, such as Swiss Chard, being evaluated for the highest quality seeds. That research work, Morin said, can take years before they’re finally able to grow seeds and put them on the shelves.
Still, she said, nurturing green plants in cold weather, and imagining acres of them growing in just a few months, still feels good.
"All the employees coming in here, they get so excited when they see all these flowers and all this color. How can you not be happy when you walk into this house?"
Jeff Hedge said the order filling will start to taper off as they get into May, but for now, it remains busy, as customers seek more varieties to plant, once the snow, ice and mud have finally gone.
At that point, many of the workers in the warehouse will head to the fields and tend crops, which will be producing the seeds they ship out next year.