Gardening is gaining in popularity across the world as the global pandemic has forced people to take a step back, slow down and get back to their roots. 

We're seeing that here in Cochrane.

The beautiful spring weather has residents itching to get their hands dirty and plant their gardens. 

Andrea Heembrock with Anything Grows says initially they voluntarily decided to shut their doors to the public and switch to contactless shopping to keep people safe.

"We knew that we were heading into our busiest time of time of year and a time when everyone is thinking about gardening. A time when there were question marks about food supply and whether or not people want to go to the grocery store. So we knew people were going to be thinking about how to supply their own household with food and vegetables and we knew people were going to want to garden and do home projects since they had time on their hands." 

Heembrock says they made the switch to local online shopping very quickly and are happy to say they are open to the public again with some restrictions. 

"The first thing we did was we opened up for online shopping so that customers could take advantage of contactless, curbside pickup after they placed their order. We also introduced a delivery program for Cochrane, the surrounding area and northwest Calgary, and we have since reopened our store for public shopping with some additional measures in place. We are asking for only one shopper per household, because that does allow us to actually be available to more households in the community."

"We've asked for no kids and no pets for the time being, which I know is a difficult measure for a lot of homes. But ,what that does is it allows us to maintain a sustainable sanitation program. And again, it allows us to just be available to more households overall, and we're also only taking debit and credit in store here, just removing cash from the equation." 

Heembrock says seeds are a hot commodity this year. 

"These are in very high demand this year, seeds and seed potatoes. We've had record sales in the seed department and a lot of our suppliers have mentioned to us that they've seen the same. So we're trying to keep our stock up for our customers but we've definitely noticed that a lot of homes are deciding to grow their own food this year." 

A lot of people who haven't tried gardening may be nervous about the concept but Heembrock says it's not that complicated. 

"Gardening is an amazing thing. I mean, plants aren't as difficult as a lot of people think they are and if you can get a good setup going you can plant it once and have it growing forever."

For more information about Anything Grows go here.

 

Anything Grows