Cheryl Loeb’s Mount Vernon retail plant nursery contains 20 acres of eye-catching flowers and ornamental plants, but these days it’s the small packets of vegetable seeds hanging from a wire rack that are getting customers’ attention.

So much so, she figures the business has probably sold more vegetable seeds this spring than any other time in its 31-year history.

“It’s a bumper crop year for vegetable gardening,” said Loeb, while scanning a picked-over selection of seeds Monday at Summersun Nursery and Landscaping, which her son Nathan now owns.

Across Skagit County, retail garden centers are seeing more customers interested in growing their own food.

Retailers cite several factors behind the trend, including the economic downturn, rising food prices, the popularity of fresh, local food and mounting concerns over food safety in the wake of high-profile food scares such as the recent salmonella outbreak in tomatoes.

Casey Schoenberger, who recently expanded his backyard garden in Conway into a small farm, has another theory. Farming, he said, has become hip.

“It’s become cool to grow your own food,” said Schoenberger, who also works at Christianson’s Nursery and Greenhouse, west of Mount Vernon. “All of the sudden, farmers are cool, and they’re celebrities at farmer’s markets, and people are getting into it.”

Skagit Valley Gardens owner Gary Lorenz said sales of food-producing plants typically spike during an economic downturn, though the effect has been dulled this time around by an unusually cool and wet spring.

“My sense is that people are looking more at vegetable gardening, but the weather has been holding them back,” he said. “Sales of vegetable starts have been strong, but not over the top.”

Small-scale gardens and orchards were once a mainstay for many homeowners, especially during both world wars when the government asked people to grow their own food to support the war effort. Dubbed “Victory Gardens,” backyard food plots and orchards eventually declined as produce and fruit became available year-round in grocery stores.

Now the tide may be turning.

Schoenberger, who moved here from Wisconsin and never farmed growing up, learned to grow food while working at a small farm on Orcas Island several years ago. These days he teaches classes on backyard food production and meets with scores of people — many in their early 20s — wanting to grow food for the first time in their lives.

Most newcomers start small, planting lettuce in small backyard plots, or even in Styrofoam containers and plastic swimming pools on their decks. After buying seeds, starts and fertilizer, Schoenberger estimates a garden can be launched for $20 or less.

The most common mistake for beginners is in choosing what to grow.

At Summersun, Loeb says that her most popular garden item, tomato plants, are also the hardest to grow in the Skagit Valley’s cool, heat-starved climate. She recommends people start with lettuce, which can be grown and harvested most of the year, and then branch out from there.

When learning to garden, it also doesn’t hurt to have a neighbor like Concrete resident Jason Miller, who’s a certified master gardener.

A self-described “rabid gardener,” Miller has eschewed grass altogether in his yard and has filled it with flowers, berry trellises and raised beds brimming with carrots, green beans, peas, cucumbers and other veggies.

Lately, more and more of Miller’s nongardening friends and neighbors have been taking an interest in what he’s doing and asking him for advice in launching their own gardens.

“There’s definitely curiosity out there,” he said. “People are seeing what other gardeners are doing and thinking, ‘I could probably do that and put a little food on my table and make my yard beautiful,’ and they run with it.”

• Josh Lintereur can be reached at 360-416-2141 or at .