CHENNAI: A week ago, young parents Amrutha Preetham and Senthil Nathan started Red Soil Spring Box, a monthly garden subscription for children. As in, you subscribe and they home-deliver a kit that would blossom (pun intended) a gardening interest in children. “Red Soil Spring Box was born out of our desire to find inspiring ways to connect young children with nature,” shares Amrutha. Gardening, their website says, encourages physical activity, develops a sense of responsibility due to caring and nurturing of plants, educates children on plant life cycles and seasons, and also appreciate healthy food and nutrition.
The service is aimed at three to 12-year-olds and anyone across the country can subscribe to it. The kit is essentially a box with four types of organic/country seeds, four coco-coir planters, four coco-peat manure and a planting and nurturing guide. You can pick from a three-month subscription (`1,950), a six-month subscription (`3,500) or a year’s subscription (`6,300) and you get a box delivered home every month. You can even gift a subscription.
“We source our seeds from farmers who have passionately based their lives preserving country/heirloom seeds, whose farms are organically grown,” explains Amrutha. “We source the coconut coir and coco peat manure from manufacturers of the same.” Amrutha, a budding entrepreneur and Senthil, the principal architect of Poetics Architecture Planning, have also founded the Red Soil Nature Play, a space where children are encouraged to connect with nature and explore it.
The couple has been advertising their gardening service on social media sites and says that they have been receiving a good response. “Since we are just a week old and in the nascent stage, we are yet to reach our first subscriber,” shares Amrutha. “We have received good feedback from social media.” Positive and hopeful about the box, the duo is looking forward to reaching young parents interested in nurturing their children through gardening.
Safety guidelines on their site advise gardening be done under the supervision of an adult and the use of safety gear such as gloves and masks. It adds: “The success of sprouting depends on various factors like the weather conditions, amount of sunlight, watering and your tender care.”
If you want to cancel your subscription, you can do so by sending an email. You can also pause it, in case you are travelling or there is a change in location. There are no full refunds. “However, if you subscribe for a three, six, or 12-month plan and cancel before the cut-off date of the forthcoming month, you will receive a refund for the remaining months from your plan,” reads the cancellation policy on their website.
For details call 91080 30050 or email redsoilspring@gmail.com