A supermarket promotion gets the thumbs-up from Gillian Vine.
Imagine 8 million little packs, each containing vegetable, flower or herb seeds, a pot and planting mix.
That’s what supermarket chain New World is giving away in its Little Garden promotion, which runs until October 23.
Every time a customer spends $40 (tobacco, cigarettes, gift card, Lotto purchases and Christmas Club top-ups are excluded), he or she is offered one of the packs.
In addition, those who swipe their loyalty cards when buying 20 participating products get a chance to win a Cook Islands holiday or a ride-on toy tractor.
"It’s a lucky dip what you get," said a checkout operator at Gardens New World, in Dunedin, handing over my first pack and a "how to" booklet.
That initial freebie was chives and, since then, I’ve scored celery, cherry tomatoes, capsicum, spring onions, leeks and cress, so I’m well on the way to the complete line-up.
New World previously ran Little Shop and Little Kitchen mini-collectable promotions, which were extremely popular, New World group retail marketing manager Stephanie Pyne said.
"This year, we wanted to do something a little different, to continue the collectables theme," she said.
"We know more and more people are interested in growing their own food: Kiwis are becoming increasingly aware of where their food is from and how it’s grown, and they care about what they eat and how this can help maintain a balanced and healthy lifestyle.
"We wanted to encourage New Zealanders to get involved and gain an even stronger understanding of where their food comes from. Little Garden is designed to be a fun, educational experience that allows parents to teach children how to grow their own produce in a playful and interesting way," Ms Pyne said.
For Little Garden — not to be confused with Little Gardener, a Mr Fothergill’s Seeds initiative — New World sourced seed through the Dutch supplier which helped the company create all its previous "Little" promotions.
The seeds are from a variety of countries, are not genetically modified and all have been cleared by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).
New World partnered with the School Kit, a national resource for teachers, to share its Little Garden concept with children in schools around the country.
"We sent out 1000 Little Garden kits via School Kit to teachers around New Zealand to help bring Little Garden to life in their classrooms," Ms Pyne said.
The schools received seedling kits, trays and teaching resources for teachers to use to encourage pupils to learn about gardening.
"All registered teachers on the School Kit database [currently more than 26,000] also received a free curriculum guide and fact sheets based on the science, technology and mathematics of growing a vegetable garden.
"We have worked with the Ministry of Done [the creators of School Kit] for the past three years with our Little Shop and Little Kitchen initiative and the schools really enjoy the variety the programme provides.
"Aside from improving our environment and being educational, gardening is fun, creative and relaxing for children and a great learning activity to have in schools," Ms Pyne said.
Feedback from customers had been very positive, she said.
Locally, we found grandparents collecting Little Garden packs to show youngsters how to garden.
"It’s a great improvement on plastic items that end up in the rubbish bin," one said.
Finally, for those who are disappointed that none of the packs contain flowers, a new Little Garden pack has been available since Monday.
There is just one flower type, petunia.
These packs are not free but cost $1, and all proceeds go to the Starship Foundation, which supports the national children’s hospital, Starship.
