Digging it: Stuck at home during the virus lockdown, we rediscover our green thumbs

I first noticed it as I was standing in a checkout line at Lowe’s.

It would have been a long line without the mandatory social distancing we were all striving to keep, which was easy, given that those of us who didn’t have carts full of potting soil bags, planters and tomato cages pushed long carts covered with bags of decorative landscaping rocks or small trees or trays of seedlings.

But all that made it longer still. One of the longest lines I’ve stood in for a while.

Well, that wasn’t in a grocery store.

“You guys are sure busy today,” I said to the masked cashier as he began scanning my bags of mulch.

“It’s never been this busy,” he responded. “Something about the apocalypse makes people want to paint their houses.”

Or, like me, plant a garden. I started gardening last year and even though it didn’t go well — I lost nearly everything to blight — I was really looking forward to it getting warmer so I could get out and plant things again.

Given the number of people in this line, it’s clear I wasn’t the only one.

“I’m at home, and we just tilled the garden, added some supplemental soil,” said Moses Lake resident Elena King, a relocation specialist who isn’t working right now.

King was in the parking lot of Penhallurick’s True Value Hardware with a couple of plastic seedling pots in her hand — early girl tomatoes and some herbs — as she made her way to her truck. She said that because she has time on her hands, she’s gardening with a great deal more gusto this year.

“I’m an avid gardener,” she said. “We have a much larger garden than we did in past years. Because you just never know, you may have to grow your own food. You want to be prepared.”

Kind said she likes getting her hands down in the soil and dirty, and that there’s “a certain something” about plants.

“They’re therapeutic and healing,” she said.

Tiarnna Boone feels much the same way. A flight attendant for Alaska Airlines on “voluntary leave,” Boone said she’s had time to build a third raised garden bed in her backyard for more vegetables and round up some of the bees that swarmed from one of the hives.

“Our intent is to have a good vegetable garden,” she said.

With much of the state shuttered in an attempt to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Boone said it’s even more important to get outside and “do something productive.”

“It forces us to get outside,” she said.

If the comments on our Facebook page to a question I asked about gardening are any indication, folks are planting bigger gardens this year, spending more time tending those gardens, or doing something new — like planting seeds rather than transplanting seedlings or growing things they’ve never grown before.

“Prepping and planning for the biggest garden we have ever had,” wrote Hannah Marie Ahmann. “Trying out vegetables we’ve never grown, and starting all from seed, which is new to us. We always have used starters in the past. Wish us luck!”

“People are at home. They don’t have a lot to do, so they come in by the droves to be able to garden,” said Louise Penhallurick Olmstead, whose family owns the True Value store on Stratford Road.

Olmstead has gardened most of her life, and while bad knees make it a challenge now, she still does what she can. And she appreciates the appeal of working with plants during difficult times.

“What better way to spend your time but in the garden?” she said. “Research shows, if you have depression, and who isn’t depressed because we can’t go shopping and we can’t play, negative ions leave your body and go to the soil and positive ions leave the soil and come into your body.”

“How much better can it get?” Olmstead added.

Whatever the scientific benefits of gardening, there is something about planting and tending green things.

Olmstead says that people who have never gardened before can start with pots and planters, though they should always make sure those have holes in the bottom to let water drain.

She also noted that anything that sprawls, like cucumbers, can be caged and made to grow up rather than out.

“We do a lot of vertical here,” she said.

Dana Anzelini, the garden manager at Penhallurick’s True Value, said that business has been brisk, with lots of people coming in and asking questions about what they should plant and where.

“People come in and say, I have this spot, I want a plant for it,” she said.

Anzelini suggests potential gardeners do a little research and know what is required for raised garden beds as opposed to simply planting in the ground.

Lucas Alvarez, an assistant at Penhallurick’s garden center who has also built some raised garden beds for Olmstead on the old Penhallurick homestead, said he’s new to gardening but is finding it tremendously enjoyable.

“I’ve never been a gardener in my life; this is a new experience,” he said. “I just like plants in general. They help connect with nature.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.