Gardening trend has national impact

More gardening is happening in Vermont this year, but that trend isn’t limited to these Green Mountains. Throughout the country, more people have been spurred on by the pandemic to create their own sources of food via gardening, including in urban locations such as New York, Houston and Philadelphia.

A number of residents have “begun to utilize spaces on rooftops, patios, and even the edges of classic Brooklyn-style buildings to create more green space in the area,” according to Bedford + Bowery, which covers downtown Manhattan and north Brooklyn.

Many have compared the surge in home gardening to the victory garden movement of the World War I & II era. As many recall, the demand for seeds skyrocketed this past spring.

"The whole seed industry hasn't seen anything like this since the Great Depression," Jere Gettle told the BBC in May. Gettle owns Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Mansfield, Missouri, the largest seller of heritage variety vegetable and flower seeds in the US, which ran out of half its stock in March.

Since then, the trend has only grown, and it’s even led to some new business opportunities. For example, a California man who found himself out of work ended up starting a business making customized planter boxes out of cedar and redwood.

Additionally, garden supply businesses have seen an uptick in sales.

"In a sense, it's been good for a gardening, homesteading, back to the land kind of focus. We're seeing a lot of people wanting to produce a bit of their own food,” Mitch True, of Guy's Farm & Yard in Williston, Vermont, told WCAX.

Going forward, the back-to-the-land trend only shows signs of deepening. It will strengthen food security, and it also has the potential for some fantastic educational opportunities for youth in New England, the country and the world. It will certainly be part of creating more sustainable communities, and that helps all of us.

— Gareth Henderson