SCK Tries… Pop Up Cress Gardens

It’s another edition of SCK Tries where we try out a DIY or kit to see how it works in real life and whether we’d recommend you give it a go. This time Nicolette & I are having a cute cress growing contest.

The Original DIY

We spotted these cress garden kits reduced to clear at Sainsbury’s while we were on holiday and couldn’t resist trying them out. I insisted on the dinos and Nicolette got the safari animals. We waited until we got home and set them up on the same day to see how they’d compare. We weren’t very organised but between us we got enough photos for a post.

---

Kit Contents

The kit includes everything you need – cress seeds, coir tablets and of course a seed tray inside a cute box with extra decorations.

---

Process

Everything was super easy to set up. You just mix the coir with water to make soil, use it to fill the tray and mix the seeds into the top layer. You can then choose where to arrange your animals/dinos for a cute display and put it in a bright place, making sure to keep the soil damp.

My flat is basically a greenhouse in the summer but I was still pretty shocked to see a few little sprouts the very next morning and within 48 hours I had lots of sprouts growing.

Even after nearly a week, Nicolette’s was not doing very well…

---

The End Result

After 5 days I had a real jungle of cress, which really did look great with the dinos who look like they’re having a good munch.

Nicolette’s took a few more days but did grow nice and tall in the end. Sadly I was ill and didn’t get to eat my cress before it wilted away but Nicolette enjoyed hers in a salad.

We’d definitely recommend this for a fun diversion, especially if you have kids, since you get a cute decoration and end up with something edible at the end. These kits are sold out now but there’s lots of similar ones online – New Leaf Nurseries (UK) have dinosaur, jungle and magical versions.