Backyard gardens around Calgary this year are seeing a lot more veggies. “I’m going to do more things like beans and lettuce,” Kathleen Hawkwood said. “And I’m going to try to grow some corn.” Hawkwood was shopping for plants and gardening supplies at Plantation Garden Centre in northwest Calgary, which is experiencing its busiest spring since opening in 2002.
Owner Colin Atter said a lot of the increase in business is related to the COVID-19 crisis. “The demand is huge and supply is short.” “As soon as something like this happens, a pandemic or a bad recession, everybody goes back to the basics of growing,” Atter said. “We are in that sort of mentality of gathering supplies and keeping sustenance going,” Hawkwood said.