Checkers get you to spend in a good way!

Checkers get you to spend in a good way!

Now this is a campaign I can truly say, go spend your money there! Once this campaign is over you will continue to save as the seeds continue to propagate.

Growing for the future

Checkers introduces the “little garden”, gone are those plastic groceries. Here is something to help our children learn about healthy foods and sustainability, an added bonus is that everything is bio degradable!

Who cares that you have to spend R150 to get one of these 24 seedling kits. The kits include 8 veggies, 8 herbs and 8 flower type seeds.

Instructions on how to water your seeds, including using what you have at home to create a watering system.

The seeds each come with facts about them. Some of the facts will have medical personal shaking their heads in despair but why shouldn’t weird facts be included in the package.

We are number 1 in Africa!

South Africa has the highest obesity rate in Africa for children under the age of 12. We are not talking merely overweight or fat but obese.

Getting children interested in gardening and growing is a small step towards teaching them about where our food comes from and healthy eating habits.

I do think that children will be more receptive to eating something they have grown themselves. A lot of children do not know where our fresh produce comes from and the more we become urbanized and indoctrinated into the fast food mind set, the less they will know. Ask the average city born child where milk or butter comes from and they would probably answer, ‘the shops’.

In South Africa our children are mostly still able to identify a potato, tomato or a cucumber in its natural form. Now ask them what their chips are made of? Tomato sauce is usually an easy one as it says tomato in the name.

The only thing I could probably do without is the repotting part. Since I don’t have little children that need the supervision, I am at least spared the digging in the dirt.

Digging in the dirt is not something I am against  as such, playing with mud and dirt is healthy for a child, it’s just that well, I am adult now and creaky knees aside, I don’t think it was ever my thing. My 21 year old son has been nominated to have a bash at growing these vegetables, herbs and plants.

I think the only other negative to this great marketing campaign is the need for a plate and spoon.

A nice touch!

The flower seeds are a nice touch as not all kids will get excited about boring vegetables. Then here is the good news, besides being pretty, all of the flowers are actually edible. This makes decorating your food fun. Here are the flowers that are edible in the Checkers little garden.  Remember that for most flowers only the petals are edible.

Baby’s breath – they slightly sweet

Cornflower- Edible but bitter, they taste a little like cloves.

Dianthus- you can eat the petals.

English Daisy- is edible but bitter

Pansy – edible and have a slight minty/wintergreen taste

Snap Dragon – the ones in the little garden are edible but they don’t really taste great and depending on the colour, could have either no taste or very bitter to the taste.

Sweet Alyssum- Both the flowers and the leaves are edible. They have a peppery  flavor

Viola- definitely edible and taste good too!

Well done Checkers marketing team, a fully edible garden!

I am normally an online shopper. This time however, I went to Checkers for my monthly groceries only to be able to get the garden!

Thank you and well done Checkers marketing team and the people who gave them a thumbs up to run this campaign.

Does this campaign make you want to go the Checkers specifically? I would love to see pictures of your growing garden!

Please note that this is not a sponsored blog post in anyway.