Here’s one company who have put a refreshingly new spin on fresh flowers and herbs. We’d like you to meet Urban Crop, introduced to us by Lucy at The Design Files.

The philosophy behind Urban Crop is all about keeping your herbs and flowers alive. Instead of harvesting them  – think tulips which have been hacked off at the stems and stuck in a bowl of  water in the florists or herbs which have been cut and jammed into plastic wrap to sit out the last of their days in aisle 5 at Coles – Urban Crop plants come with the root system intact which means they still have their life source with them.  Without this root system a plant is dead but Urban Crop plants are alive, full of energy and nutrients.

Urban Crop herbs and flowers come in a nutritious natural  soil which is full of life, so the plants go home with you, complete with their own little supply of soil.  This is their fuel so they recommend  that each plant should be kept in their packaging for the duration of their stay. Gone are the days of cut flowers which will be lucky to last the weekend before they start to droop or basil which was bought for a salad but becomes so slimy that even pesto seems out of the question.

They’re alive, they’re unharvested and they’re full of life. What’s more, Urban Crop believe in the after life; so once you’ve enjoyed the razzle dazzle, simply pop the plant and packaging back in your own compost. Flowers often feel like an expensive gift that rarely lasts long and seems kind of wasteful; likewise for those of us who can’t grow a herb garden, a bunch of herbs is often too much for one meal yet with such a short lifespan you often can’t use them for more than a few days once they’ve been harvested. What a lovely idea. I don’t know about you but I’m starting to feel all warm inside.