While Gov. Jay Inslee says Washington’s food supply chain is sound, many local gardeners are echoing a broader national desire to be proactive during the coronavirus crisis.

“One of the positive spins of COVID-19 is the response from the community, and the need for folks to get out there and garden,” says Kenya Fredie, program supervisor of all 90 P-Patch community gardens in Seattle. “[P-Patches] are unique ways to grow your own food during these economically uncertain times. We can be social with the distancing, getting people out of isolation and into the sunshine, getting their hands in the soil.”

Gabriel Maki, owner of Swanson’s Nursery in Seattle, says he has seen an unprecedented increase in home seed deliveries and drive-up purchases, as well as a shift in customer behavior.

Seed packet sales for edible plants are up 30% to 40% for the year so far in the past few weeks alone, “which is unheard of,” Maki says. “We’ve been doing this a long time, and you don’t see any kind of bumps like that unless there’s something very unusual going on. And we can definitely feel an edibles kind of focus.”

At this time of year, he says, customers usually make woody plant purchases for summer landscaping, but instead they’re buying food plants, like tomato and cucumber seeds, and colorful flowers.

“There’s almost a [newly] discovered need, a motivation to grow more, like helping out the community or something,” he says of some customers. “Everybody wants to help out, and especially right now, when you can’t even get near people.”