Obviously, the demand for vegetable gardens, at least up here in Zone 5b, was larger than predicted.

Goodness, I wonder why?

I have a vague memory that Alan Greenspan, of blessed memory, would, when thinking about economic policy, lie back in his bathtub and think, not only about statistics -- which, as we all know, are fake, these days -- but about anecdotal evidence as well. "Hmm, it seems that both industrial ammonia and coal-tar derivative shipments have dropped...." Which would be a good leading indicator of a slowdown, since ammonia is used in many industrial processes.

And so with seeds. And these datapoints, aggregated, might be something that PB 2.0 could do....