Grow Cards Inspired By the Allotment

Living in the vibrant city of Norwich we were lucky ( after a long patient wait) to acquire a generous allotment plot. While we have a small growing area at home we are surrounded by a lot of magestic trees so light can de dappled. The allotment on the other hand radiates light so it’s a very different growing experience. The other bonus is we are surrounded by growers that have worked their plots for decades and are wonderfully generous with advice. ‘ x sells the best Mushroom compost’ ‘ don’t bother with celeriac’ ‘ look out for the allotment munkjack!’ ‘ you will need to put at least 6 hours of work in a week!’ Are some of the wise words of advice and caution from our plot neighbours.

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While this land has been actively grown on for 100 years it still delivers seasonal wonders to the table and has been the inspiration for the new ‘Grow’ collection of greeting cards. The models for the early sketches were picked straight from the earth (as seen below) 


or from the magestic fig tree that we share with our neighbour. 

The patience required with growing aligns with our printing process,( find out more in OUR STORY ),while the final printing output is fast, it is the complex layering of limited ink tones in the design process that takes the time, but like growing when the results emerge there’s deep satisfaction. There are lots more designs for the Grow collection in my head/ sketchbook ( including flowers!) and I love the idea of teaming up with a seed company so that we can offer packets of seeds to post inside a card … watch this space .

If you are a fellow grower or curious to see more from the  plot & it’s ongoing projects you can follow our allotment Instagram ‘off to the plot’