I grow all my own seedlings now, but in the past I have bought online from a few places. In the course of researching a tomato I saw mentioned here, I wound up at the website of White Flower Farm in Connecticut, where I have purchased tomato seedlings from in the past...and noticed they said that "due to agricultural restrictions, we cannot ship tomatoes to Georgia, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina or Texas". Being that CT almost touches NJ, separated by a little spit of NY, I wondered why that was, so I looked it up...thinking it might have something to do with the Spotted Lanternfly.

I found we here in NJ have instituted some fairly severe inspection requirements for various diseases and insects of tomato plants (no mention of Spotted Lanternfly). I'm not sure when this happened, but it seems like the larger places (Burpee, Territorial) must have the inspection covered because they make no mention of it (at least to NJ). I didn't try to find out why they can't ship to those other states, but it made me glad I started growing my own seedlings a couple of years ago, and sad that in the future it might limit me if I go back to buying them.

Last I checked, the new jersey law makes it impossible for small sellers to ship live plants to the state. An inspection of some sort is required, and they make sure it would take long enough to get the inspection so that the plants would surely die first. Larger companies can get some sort of facility inspection or company wide certificate for their plants.

Safety rules that only big companies have the resources necessary to comply are unfortunately quite common in the US.

As much as i dislike it, i understand it.

The lantern fly issue in particular had been a growing problem. Thankfully, i haven't seen any in western PA, but i know it's just over the mountain to my east.

On a positive note, the restriction is only State wide.