herbs Archives - Mummy's Little StarsMummy's Little Stars

Sprout have developed a 100% sustainable pencil right to the very end of it’s life – as when you’ve almost used it up, you just turn it upside down and pop the end in some soil. Et voila! – the seeds at the end of the pencil will grow and you will have a plant growing in 1 to 4 weeks! It could be some wonderful herbs, flowers or vegetables. The stub also acts as a marker with the name of your seeds labelled on it so you won’t forget what plant is growing in each pot.

Each set of pencils has a different theme, I went with the ‘Mindful Thoughts’ edition which has a lovely quote along the length of each one. At the end of each pencil in an enclosed capsule, there are seeds such as Sage, Daisy, Basil, Chia and Thyme.

The pencils themselves are lovely to write with, perfect for my shopping lists and the children have been using them for drawing etc. They look smart and feel like they are good quality. I can’t wait to get near to the end of one to turn it it into a beautiful plant that I can use – in fact I can just imagine the whole set of pencils in a row of pots along my kitchen windowsill. Then watching them turn into a beautiful array of fresh herbs to use in my cooking – how wonderful would that be!

I think the Sprout Pencil ‘Plant Your Pencil’ concept is a lovely idea and very eco friendly. They would also make a lovely gift for someone and sure to put a smile on someones face seeing the double use for the pencil and something a bit different from usual. Make sure you check them out!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews. Although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.

After enjoying our success of growing salad leaves last year with the #TigerGrowAlong project we were pleased to be asked by Tiger Sheds to join in again this year, but this time with the challenge of growing some herbs, in our case Basil. Our kit arrived just over a week ago and the children were excited to get started.

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Rather than using just a packet of seeds, we were provided with a really simple way of planting seeds from an innovative British young brand SeedCell. Their seeds come in handy snap off recycled cells that you just poke into the soil and they gradually absorb the moisture from underneath as they are watered, keeping the seeds protected until they germinate. The pulp then breaks down naturally nourishing the ground leaving a lovely mulch for the growing plants.

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We lined our planter before the children filled it with the compost and then gently pushed the SeedCells into the soil. Everyday after school they have then been popping into the garden to water the cells, eager to see something grow that they can eventually pick and use to cook with.

Although we’ve had some great sunny days, it’s been a bit cloudy too, but we are delighted to see some life finally coming out of our pods. Our baby Basil plants have arrived and we are looking forward to following their progress over the next few weeks and hope to show you them in use in a recipe once they are old enough to pick and eat.

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Keep following us for updates using the #TigerGrowAlong hashtag on twitter and look out for another post in the near future with the results of our herb growing project.

Thanks to Tiger Sheds and SeedCell for providing the goods for our little herb gardening adventure.