LITTLEBIG LOVES: Nyokki pets and friends

WHILST CHILDREN often enjoy the messier aspects of outdoor gardening, it can be difficult to get them excited about cultivation - as the process is often so slow. It’s only when those strawberries finally emerge that their interest is rekindled. And so The Balcony Gardener’s new offerings for kids are perfect for short attention spans.

The Balcony Gardener - our current favourite gardening e-shop - specialises in kits and ready made balcony gardens, and these kits for children - including the Nyokki pets, (bear, kitty or chick pots - the bear is at the right of the picture), which sprout grass ‘hair’, the i-grobot (Robot model), and Taterpots (for mint or basil, pictured middle left) - are instant gratification incarnate, and are genuinely easy for kids to do all the stages themselves: they contain peat plugs and cute little seed packets, and away they go…

The grass seeds in particular sprout within a day or two. So those mornings spent searching for signs of life aren’t for nothing. The grass then sprouts at a healthy rate so that kids can cut it with scissors just like hair. The mint and basil seeds can be grown in their cute containers until they’re ready to harvest, to be transplanted to bigger pots or the garden. All the irresistible pots are reusable as ornaments and keepsakes.

It will probably come as no surprise that these sophisticated little kits are mostly Japanese in genesis: designed as they are not just for children, but for tiny urban living spaces too. From £7.50 - £8.95.

*The Balcony Gardener: www.thebalconygardener.com