The story of the sweet pea seed. "Under this label is a Sweet Pea Seed. When empty, please fill the jar with earth and plant the seed - "plant a seed - feed a bee"."

 

When we first started down this sticky honey trail, we were advised to go to the mighty "Glastonbury Festival" and sell our honey. Accordingly, we contacted the great and powerful Glastonbury powers-that-be who told us that we would be welcome to set up and sell our honey in the "Green" area. As Glastonbury was still some weeks away we began to stock up. At the time our honey was packaged in little squattybody jars made of plastic. Although it was re-cyclable plastic, we still awoke one night after a cold sweat nightmare of being told that we could not sell plastic jars in the "Green" area. Our answer was to painstakingly tape a seed to the side of each jar and advise our customers to use the empty jar to get the seed started on it's journey to flowerhood. We picked sweetpea seeds because they were just the right size and because nobody doesn't like sweet peas. It turned out that we never did make it to Glastonbury... but the snowball had started to roll downhill. People began to send us pictures of sweet peas.. climbing over fences and trellises, taking over kitchen windowsills, decorating greenhouses and garden sheds... they tell us stories of how much fun the kids had planting and tending the seeds.... they even occasionally ask us for extra seeds if they have more than one child - but we don't carry extras..... just one seed per jar. When we changed jar style to one which allowed the seed to nestle in a small hollow at the base of the jar, it became much easier for our beloved overworked Muffin.. but our customers were horrified when they first saw the new HunnyTubs without the seeds taped to the side of the jars. It didn't start out to be the next big thing... there still isn't any real satisfying explanation for it (and you can imagine what the beancounters think of the expense - although for two years our seeds have been provided gratis, the time and effort cost is considerable) but it's clear that the KidHugs seed is there to stay.   b4 you ask... we don't know what colour the flowers will be, or whether they are perrennials or annuals.. or what the fragrance will be... but we know that they make people smile and that's sufficient reason for us to continue.   The seeds have been provided, since 2003, by the curious but magnificent generosity of Mr. Peter Dobson at Suttons Seeds in Devon. If he only knew how many smiles his simple act of generosity has created...

listen for the giggle  

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7, Goodison Way, Darlington, Co. Durham, DL1 2SU -

info@kidhugs.com - http://kidhugs.com