Friday, 08 February 2019

Silly Greens could just be another online plant shop, but they don't grow plants, they sow them. Most of the growing is done in people's kitchens once its arrives in the post.

This is the latest development in what you can get through the post, being the first ready-growing letterbox herb box. The seedlings arrive small and ready to grow in the box, making micro herbs, a crop which is particularly difficult to shop for, fresh and accessible.

Their micro herbs boxes are part of a plan to get people growing food and connecting with what is on their plate. Different incentives are needed to grow your own food in today's world, says founder Ed Hall, who believes there's a different set of reasons why people grow today, it's less about the staples these days because food is cheap. Perhaps we've forgotten all the other things that make it a great thing to do. Their boxes will also be an opportunity to push other food growing initiatives, growing more than micro herbs and incentivising people to grow them for different purposes.

Micro herbs the name given to a seedling of a herb or vegetable have long been used by Chefs for their colour and punchy flavour. The company was set up four years ago by Ed who out of a job, living in London and wanting to do something more related with his farming roots started looking at ways which would interest people to grow food, just like the roof garden above a supermarket that he helped grow food to be sold below. The challenge of finding a space to grow something and a worthwhile crop to grow was what inspired, escaping above the skyline was also a big draw. Suddenly the city presented new potential. Ed's venture however started at ground level, 'Roofs are great but a little tricky to start and maintain', the one he was involved in eventually springing a leak to the floors below. The first attempt was to grow food for restaurants in their own gardens but it didn't last long, his one client a few doors down from where he lived eventually closing down.

The idea for sending micro herbs in the post came from a visit to a local pub, speaking with the Chef as he was shown around the garden he saw their approach to growing micro herbs, getting them from their supplier in a half grown state ready to mature. The pub was using a lot of them and this is how they got them in best condition so surely the same concept could be applied for people at home. Around this time farms were being set up all across London, in tunnels and warehouses and so it seemed, the micro herb was becoming a thing. A few years later and after painstaking trials and many dubious attempts at sending them through the post, they've perfected ways of starting a mix of herbs each week.

There's a definite lack of diversity in growing, as food production becomes increasingly mono-cultured and purely commoditised. Silly greens wants to challenge this or at least supplement the bigger picture, our disconnect and lack of know-how is only serving to promote this type of food production. Ed's a strong believer that the best change will take place if people are tangibly involved, which has always been the aim of Silly Greens, providing crops that are worthwhile to grow and doing so in a way that's convenient and achievable for people to do themselves.

There's huge potential to utilise space and to grow an exciting range of crops close to where we consume it, Silly Greens hopes to be part of the innovative ways in which food can be grown, rethinking the approach slightly to fit in with today.

Please direct enquires to Ed.
Email: ed@sillygreens.com
Direct: 07484 750 118
Office: 020 3877 0525
5-7 Buck Street, London, NW1 8NJ