Growing plants at home is trendy

Nelson Garden launched a world first at Elmia Garden. Called Easy to grow, it is a starter kit with everything in one package for growing tomato, lettuce and cabbage seedlings.

“If you want to grow plants at home today, you need to buy a variety of stuff to get started and that can be a barrier to many people,” explains Ulf Fransson, product range developer at Nelson Garden. “It’s become trendy to grow vegetables at home and we want to jump on that trend. That’s why we’ve developed this starter kit to make it easy for people to get underway.”

In a small plastic box with space for six plugs made of peat and coconut fibre, the seeds are preplanted two to each plug. The bottom of the box holds the water and the lid is placed on top, creating a tiny greenhouse. After three to four weeks it’s time to plant out the seedlings, preferably in front of a window to get as much light as possible. An electric light is useful as a complementary light source.

For people keen to grow their own vegetables all year round, Nelson Garden is launching small covered trays that also work well in front of a window. They were also unveiled at Elmia Garden.

“With a covered tray you can start growing seeds at any time of the year and the packet includes everything you need – the soil, seeds and tray itself,” Fransson says. “These let you experience growing vegetables at home by your window and you can add them straight to your salad. Most varieties will grow back after you’ve cut them down.”

Nelson Garden had high expectations of its product launches at Elmia Garden.

“This is a terrific meeting place for us, partly because we meet the entire industry and because we can have good meetings, both group ones and spontaneous ones at our stand. We also regard the fair as a good internal kick-off event because we get inspired ourselves by seeing our new products in this setting,” Fransson concludes.