Buying seeds, planting gardens and growing scallions in jars is trending

In 1917, as the United States deployed troops to a Europe battered by warfare and food shortages, victory gardens sprang up across the U.S. Planted by civilians with urging by the government, these small gardens were made to feed American infantry and help “win the war.” Now, more than a century later, victory gardens are once again in fashion amid fears of shortages during the coronavirus pandemic, with seed companies seeing a surge in demand. But for many people sheltering at home without access to outdoor space, their version of victory gardens look a little less like dedicated plots of earth, and more like scallions growing in glasses of water on the windowsill. Like quarantine baking, dalgona coffee, and virtual parties, this form of low-key gardening — hereby dubbed “victory sills,” trademark not pending — has emerged as one of the pandemic’s at-home micro-trends, adopted and adapted by those who are fortunate enough to be able to stay indoors and tinker with some light horticulture.