How The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Led To A Boom In Crisis Gardening
When David Blackley unlocks the doors at Renfrow Hardware at 8 a.m., customers are already lined up — six feet apart — on the sidewalk in front of the Matthews, North Carolina, hardware store with shopping lists of seeds and vegetable plants.
None of them are allowed in the store as a precaution during the coronavirus pandemic. So shoppers recite their lists to staff who pick the orders and leave trays filled with vegetable and herb plants and seeds in front of the greenhouse for customer pickup.
“People are buying plants and seeds a month ahead [of the regular planting season],” Blackley said. “It’s thrown greenhouse growers and bulk seed suppliers into overdrive.”
Even though food supplies may be currently secure, said Rose Hayden-Smith, a food historian and author of ”Sowing the Seeds of Victory,” understocked supermarket shelves are forcing shoppers to think about the source of their food, especially fruits and vegetables, often for the first time. And their fears have led them straight to the garden center.
“It’s helpful to be productive and connect with nature and it’s something that’s within our control in a situation that feels entirely out of control,” she said.
Garden centers, considered essential services in most states, have moved their inventories online or started offering curbside pickup of soil, vegetable seeds and transplants, and seed companies are seeing huge spikes in demand due to fears over coronavirus-related food shortages. More time at home also means more time to nurture seeds into supper.
Seeing the almost-bare shelves at her local grocery store, combined with having more time at home, was what motivated Jill Weisensee to plant a small vegetable garden in her Portland, Oregon. “I plant a few tomatoes every summer … but the [coronavirus] and the [food] hoarding made me think about planting a vegetable garden a little more seriously,” she said.
“We got seeds and starts and potting soil from a...
