Secret Seed Society and Bumpkin invite you to some Easter workshops!

Workshop Wednesdays at Bumpkin

If you’re aged between 5 and 10 and like making miracles/mess in the kitchen this is the news you’ve been waiting for! We will be running theatrical cooking and tasting workshops at Bumpkin Notting Hill on Wednesdays the 13th and 20th April.

While kids get creating with Secret Seed Society in the upstairs hideaway, grown ups can take it easy in the downstairs Bumpkin Bar, with complimentary coffee or tea. 90 minutes later everyone’s invited to join the tea party or dip tasting ceremony. Kids get a Storybook & Seed pack to take home so that they can have a new homegrown adventure.

Will the dips be delightful or dastardly? How mad will the muffins be?

30% discount off your bill!

If your appetite has been tickled and you want to stay for lunch or early dinner.

How to book?

Workshops cost £25, last 90 minutes and are perfect for 5 -10 years olds.

Workshops have 20 spaces and there will be 4 facilitators

A guardian form must be completed before the workshop. Click here to read it.

Book in advance by phone or email.

email: [email protected] phone: 020 7243 9818

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We have exciting top secret news for you! . . .

Word in Seed City is that Parsley Bussell, the famous ballerina in Carla Carrot’s ‘What Will I Be?’, will be leaping her way down to River Cottage next weekend! Not only this, there may even be sightings of Bruss-Lee Sprout the best martial arts actor in the world!

River Cottage is the home of our great eco-warrior friend Huge Fennel Withastalk. The ‘Get Growing in Spring’ Festival will help all you budding gardeners start growing all your favourite fruit and veg. With all the latest tips and gardening equipment, you’ll be all set up to start digging and sowing your seeds!

Oh, I almost forgot…and just to add to all this fantastic news, Seed City Museum itself is coming along too! Where you’ll see even more famous Seedizens AND get the chance to create some of your very own! Whether it’s Julius Ceasar Salad Leaves, Juicy Lush Strawberry’s (JLS) or Harry Pepper from Harry Pepper and The Chamber of Secret Seeds, it’s entirely up to you. Be as creative as you can and you’ll be able to see your very own drawing up in the Seed City Museum Gallery!

So, important information for Seed Agents:

Where to be?

River Cottage

When?

Saturday 26th March 2011

What Time?

10:30am – 4:00 pm

Admission Charges?

£14.50 per adult (Children under 12 years old must be accompanied by an adult but do not require tickets)

This is top-notch stuff, not to be missed! So if you think that you have what it takes to create the best famous vegetable beings then come join us!

Look out for our Giant Veg Hats!

Hi Seed Agents!

It’s time for some more food fun! . . . We all know how exciting it is to experiment with the food we eat. Making our own souper soup is always going to bring out the Huge Fennel Withastalk in us!

BUT! Do you know where the food you eat actually comes from? Sometimes straight from our gardens. But the banana I ate with my lunch today had come all the way from the Caribbean. That’s over 4,000 miles away!!!

We’ve found a really fun mission for you to do.

At Face-Your-Food you can make a video recording with a twist! You can record yourself eating your favourite fruit or vegetable and it will be played in slow motion and BACKWARDS! It’s quite amazing! Ask your Mum if she can find me on the Secret Seed Society Facebook page eating my crunchy British apple!

Let us know (by email at [email protected]) when your video is up too so we can see what tasty foods you’ve been munching on! Click here to try it!

Welcome to the Secret Seed Society. We are excited that you will be taking up this special offer for those of you who love to eat seasonally. You can get a 15% discount on your orders for Full Seed Agent Memberships by using the Secret Code. Remember only tell your best friends.

Secret Code : I eat seasonably

Tell me more about the Full Seed Agent Membership

Lorna Awarded the Secret Seed Mingo Mung The Mighty Messenger book 5/5

I thought the book looked like fun for the kids and me too! I rat the book at great quality, Aimee really .liked the book and we read it several times. The illustrations were fun and captivating and she enjoyed me reading it to her. Aimee enjoyed the story very much and found it easy to understand, also very stimulating. The book was great, I never thought my children would eat mung beans but after reading the book and watching them grow they seemed excited about it! I would definitely buy more of these books and recommend them as this is a great way of introducing the kids to growing and eating new things. Lorna Gordine – Aimee 5 Years

Some friendly faces and interesting places…

Helpful websites for gardeners:

Garden Organic

A very well established charity for organic growing that do great research and schools programmes. There are good ideas for days out here too.

Mr Digwell

Mr. Digwell used to have a newspaper column showing you how to garden, but uses his website to sell gardening equipment and vegetables.

National Wildlife Federation

A website full of fun stuff for North American gardeners. It’s really well put together. Just click on the Kids bit at the top.

Kiddie Gardens

Wow – there’s a lot of information here! Full of good advice. There aren’t many pictures, but if you’re a good reader you’ll learn loads.

Natural Gardener

What a brilliant website. Another one with shed-loads of information, including a lot of good stuff about the creepy-crawlies who gnaw on plants. You can also buy lots of gardening equipment from their online shop.

TIO Organics

Our friends at TIO love carrots. They have carrots for pets. They have good recipes facts about carrots. They even promise a ‘carrot jam’, although they haven’t put the recipe up yet…

Balcony Gardener

Here you can buy a load of plants and gardening things for your balcony. And if you don’t have a balcony, you can use windowboxes. And if you don’t have a window, you can use your socks. And if you don’t have a sock, use your shoulder.

Things to do:

My Tiny Plot

A blog about veg and cooking with lots of helpful advice and colourful photos.

Big Lunch

Get together with friends and neighbours for the Big Lunch! An Eden Project initiative to have lunches together in the street, organised by communities.

Face Your Food

What face do you pull when chomping on a celery stick?

Eden Project

Humungous domes in Cornwall, full of rainforests and plantlife from around the world. Doesn’t it sound amazing! The Eden Project is a brilliant place to learn.

Wiggly Wigglers

Pet worms! Own your own. And get all the kit right here: see-through wormlands where you can watch them eat wriggle and poop pathways through the soil.

Butterfly World Project

Another massive, impressive project with domes! This one is in St. Albans, with designer gardens and is full of tens of thousands of butterflies, fluttering all over the place. When it’s finished it will even have an Aztec pyramid.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage

That Hugh’s a busy guy! You probably know his River Cottage television show, but have you seen all the recipes and tips on his website?

Groups to join:

Slow Food UK

A not-for-profit all about food production and healthy chomping.

Seed Agent Emily won our Name the Pumpkin competition and wrote to us with some stories about gardening and baking and pumpkin scooping-and-carving. Phew! You’ve been busy haven’t you Emily!

Here is her letter:

Hi

My name is Emily and I am 5. I entered the name the pumpkin competition at Sacrewell Farm. . I am so excited about winning the competition.

This summer I have been busy helping my mummy choose and grow flowers in our new garden. We also have a plum tree and it was great fun picking the plums and eating them. Mum made a yummy crumble and a plum cake for the travelling cafe day at my school.

I haven’t planted any seeds yet but I have helped my daddy to do lots of planting in the garden. He let me dig the holes, put the plants in and water them after. I have some sunflower seeds to grow for next year. Mummy is. going to get me my own planters too so that I can grow some vegetables.

My favourite vegetables are carrots and broccoli and I love most fruit.

At Halloween I carved my own pumpkin and scooped out all the seeds. I have kept some of them although they are a bit slippery!

Anyway I am hoping Santa will bring me some of your fun stories. In the meantime I am enjoying reading your newsletters (with help from mummy!)

I am looking forward to going to butterfly world and having more seed society adventures!

Seed Agent Emily

If you feel like writing to us too you can: fun[at]secretseedsociety.com

Check out these Pumpkin Day pictures of Carla, Chrissie, Peter and Pippy down on Riverford’s Farm.

Pumpkin Day happens once a year on Riverford’s Farm in Peterborough, families put on their gloves and come to play with the pumpkins. Pippy the Pumpkin was the guest of honour of course.

Chrissie and Pippy made new friends, and look at the smiles on Carla’s and Peter’s faces: they had a good time too.

Is this Seed Agent posting a Christmas Card to Seed City?

If you have a card for Seed City you can send it to us at:

Seed HQ, Studio 308, Netil House, 1a Westgate Street, London E8 3RL

And we’ll forward it on!

Down at Books for Cooks we met a lot of fun people!

We captured a couple of them on film…

The Secret Seed Society love to wear vegetables on their heads…

…But sometimes we meet a real natural…

Look!

This is Carlo. Carlo is wearing our Cauliflower!

We introduced Carlo to Carlos Cauliflower from Leafy Lane Lido!

Hey! You’re not Carlos! You’re Eric from Books for Cooks!

Cold? Hungry?

Try a bit of baking!

This is a Brand New part of the newsletter where we give you food ideas!

It’s best to grab a Grown-Up to help you with these cutting and cooking projects… They can be a bit dangerous.

The idea is to take a fruit or vegetable and bake it ’til it bursts! It’s very simple.

I wanted to make something as tasty as Shena’s Melted Apples…

But instead of using apples I thought I’d try something new.

This fruit is called a Quince:

And those are Sultanas, and those are a load of Prunes…

I thought it might be fun to do a bit of carving… But Halloween was two weeks ago. I’m sorry if I made the Quince look a bit scary.

By now the Quince was all mushy and soft and steaming. The whole kitchen smelled of lovely baked fruit!

So I added some porridge and nuts, and then shoveled it into my big greedy mouth! And down my shirt!

What do you think of our Seed City stories?

We want to know your opinion about our stories — that’s how we learn what you like.

If you tell us whatever you think of them you will be helping us make more books, and also giving us a great way of showing people who aren’t Seed Agents what our Secret Seed Society is all about.

Have a look at Seed Agent Toby’s review of Bong Bong Bongity Bong. We’re asking our Seed Agents to get writing please, and send us pictures of your reviews. Here’s what Toby’s looks like:

A review means giving your opinion of something. People review books, food, films, and lots of other things.

Here are some ideas of things to think about that might help you:

What do you think of our Seed City stories?

Who is your favourite character and why do you like them?

How do you like the pictures? Would you like to live in Seed City?

It’s been such a great month for the Seed Agent Club that it’s been impossible to pick just one Seed Agent of the Month. So we’ve been greedy and picked three!

Seed Agent Charlotte!

Look at all the colours on Seed Agent Charlotte’s majestic sprouting hat!

Charlotte’s hat was so brilliant we all wanted to try it on! You can see how happy wearing it made Menka… Charlotte was one of our Hat-Making team at Butterfly World at the start of half-term. You could see her hat from a mile away! A lot of Seed Agents made hats with us that day and Charlotte helped show everybody her decorating tips.

After making her own hat Charlotte made some beautiful presents for her Mum and Dad, and then helped us name these tiny colourful butterflies that kept zipping in circles around our heads. After all that making she had to be one of our Seed Agents of the Month!

Seed Agent João!

João came to us with a pocketful of sunflower seeds and a little wooden ladybird. He designed a hat and a booklet of rare butterflies…

… and then a real ladybird came along, and ran around on his hand. What a ladybird magnet!

Listen up Cauliflower Ears! We have life-changing news for you!

Have you ever heard of the Full Seed Agent Membership before?

The Seed Agent Club has become even better, which is a surprise because it is already the best club in the world. Are you a Seed Agent yet?

Sticker Nose thinks it is the best club in the world, don’t you Sticker Nose?

The brand new Full Membership is for you Seed Agents who someone you know has asked us to send goodies in the post. These Special Deliveries will have your name on so that everybody knows they are yours. The kind of goodies we send you will be things like:

Seed City Storypacks to read and grow,

certificates and a member’s card to prove your Seed Agent credentials,

badges to identify other Agents,

Welcome to the growing underground club…

Have you heard? If you HAVE heard – who told you?

We are making two Top Secret

Keep it a secret – only tell Seed Agents!

Exciting news for Half-Term, Seed Agents!

Get your diaries out and write ‘BUSY WITH SEED AGENT BUSINESS’ all over October 25th and October 31st!

We’re going to be holding all-day hat-making workshops in Butterfly World‘s Solar Dome on October 25th. Have you ever seen a Solar Dome before by the way? Here’s what one looks like:

And we’ll be back at Butterfly World on Halloween for a How-Fat’s-the-Squash-Game! The very lucky winner wins a Make Your Own Apron Kit – so you can design your own apron for cooking your veg in! Do you think you can guess the weight of a big chunky vegetable? Come along and give it a go… You’ll be able to find us if you explore the amazing Flowerpot Garden…

We first visited the Butterfly World Project in St. Albans last month, and couldn’t believe our eyes, or our luck.

We explored the beautiful gardens and were allowed to touch the caterpillars, which felt furry, silky and precious. Actually they felt a bit like Turkish Delight…

We’d like to thank all the butterfly experts there for answering our questions and showing us around their colourful wonderland.

They have a Butterfly Tunnel full of butterflies and moths. The butterflies in the Butterfly Tunnel landed on our clothes, which felt very lucky.

We met some Seed Agents in the Butterfly Tunnel. Our Seed Agents get everywhere!

There are fantastic gardens to explore at Butterfly World, created by their gardener Ivan. Walking around his gardens is like exploring his imagination, and that alone is worth the trip.

What do vegetables and butterflies have in common?

They both have a few tricks up their sleeves…

How does one of these seeds:

Turn into one of these?

And how does one of these:

Turn into one of these?

We went Hat-Making at Butterfly World!

Have a look at these fantastic photos of our latest adventure:

Thank you to all the Seed Agents who made hats with us in our sunny Veg-Dome!

It was all over the news!

Giant Vegetables capering around fashionable West London Books-for-Cookshop!

Secret Seed Society went camped on Portobello Road the other day, outside Books For Cooks. It’s a wonderful bookshop, but our hats didn’t fit inside the door, so we stood outside. We lured in passers-by and turned them into friends, and sometimes Seed Agents!

See! There!

Amy approaches looking harmless enough… and then

brandishes her apples!

‘Seed City storypacks are a worthy investment, Madams…’

Our new friends were intrigued by the lady in the carrot...

I'll take two!

I'll take four!

I was having such a good time my false teeth almost fell out!

Thank you everyone at Books for Cooks!

We spent some of our Saturday making new friends at the Hub and teaching them how to be stylish!

The hat designs were pretty wild:

Hat-making is serious business you know! It takes concentration and LOTS of paper.

Carmen made an amazing Aztec head-dress that flopped about when she nodded her head!

Look at this talented bunch of hat-makers!

If any of you know any Kings or Queens who want a new royal crown, send them along to the Secret Seed Society!

The hats underwent rigorous testing...

We’d like to say thank you to Arthur and Cherry at Calverts for providing all the paper for our day of fashionable hat-making!

The first one is a composer…

… and the second one is a composTer! Har! Har! Har!

Can you spot the difference? We can’t.

Time to get dirty, Seed Agents! Put on a pair of wellies…

…some old clothes, like your Mum’s wedding-dress, and a thick pair of gloves.

Compost is useful: it makes plants grow faster than normal soil because it has more nutrients inside.

We’re going to teach you to make compost. Have you ever made compost before? It’s a lot easier than composing a concerto…

The first thing to do is collect a barrowful of leaves and place them in a heavy-duty bag. This is helpful – not only will this help you grow lots of veg but you can get rid of all those old leaves too! Don’t get the bag confused with your laundry though.

Into each bag of leaves not laundry, put one to two spadefuls of garden soil and two spadefuls of manure.

Now apply enough water to thoroughly moisten the leaves, and have a drink yourself because you must be thirsty after all that spade-work…

Have a little whistle too if you can, composting often puts me in the mood for composing.

Carefully punch 10 to 15 holes in the plastic bag. This lets air to circulate through the leaves. You can see why it is so important to know the difference between compost and composers: composers compose best when they are unpunctured. The music of a punctured composer is not very nice to listen to, although some people like that kind of thing.

Turn the bag upside down once or twice and add water, if needed, to keep the leaves moist. If you’re choosing to make compost with a composer, ask them how they’re feeling. They might want to be let out of the bag.

Store your bags of composting leaves in an out-of-sight place, Maybe use them as a pillow. After about 2 weeks of patient waiting open the bags to check on the composting process. Usually the compost will be ready for you to use between 6 and 8 weeks.

Seeds are brilliant and so are helicopters!

A lot of plants pack their seeds into helicopters.

Parks are the best place to find spinning seeds. Go and look for some! You’ve probably seen them spinning down from the treetops on the wind…

… They spin round and around and around and…

Have a good hunt for these spinning seeds because they’re really fun, but you can make one too. And then you can decorate them!

Here are some ideas of what you can do with those Autumn Helicopters you find or make:

We want you to:

race them

chase them

catch them

decorate them

name them (please!)

And then of course we want you to send us your pictures!

Listen up, Seed Agents!

We want you to find or make some Helicopters of your own. Then we want you to decorate them, give them a name, and race them…

Here’s one I made earlier:

I call her Chop Suey!

Let me tell you more about these amazing seeds:

A – Box Elder B – Empress Tree C – Big-Leaf Maple D – Tree Of Heaven E – Evergreen Ash F – Tipu Tree G – Jacaranda

Everybody loves these winged seeds that fall in beautiful ways. There are different kinds: some glide, some parachute, and others spin!

Dandelions are parachutes. You’ve probably seen dandelions before. In case you haven’t this is what they look like:

Dandelions are smart – they grow into balls of silky cloud that everybody likes to blow and watch float away. The floating dandelion seeds sprout into yellow flowers that look like a lion’s mane. Some people th

Exciting news for Half-Term, Seed Agents!

Get your diaries out and write ‘BUSY WITH SEED AGENT BUSINESS’ all over October 25th and October 31st!

We’re going to be holding all-day hat-making workshops in Butterfly World’s Solar Dome on October 25th. Have you ever seen a Solar Dome before by the way? Here’s what one looks like:

And we’ll be back at Butterfly World on Halloween for a Squash Weight-Guessing adventure! The very lucky winner wins a Full Membership to the famous Seed Agent club! Do you think you can guess the weight of a big chunky vegetable? Come along and give it a go… You’ll be able to find us if you explore the amazing Flowerpot Garden…

We first visited the Butterfly World Project in St. Albans last month, and couldn’t believe our eyes, or our luck.

We explored the beautiful gardens and were allowed to touch the caterpillars, which felt furry, silky and precious. Actually they felt a bit like Turkish Delight…

We’d like to thank all the butterfly experts there for answering our questions and showing us around their colourful wonderland.

They have a Butterfly Tunnel full of butterflies and moths. The butterflies in the Butterfly Tunnel landed on our clothes, which felt very lucky.

We met some Seed Agents in the Butterfly Tunnel. Our Seed Agents get everywhere!

There are fantastic gardens to explore at Butterfly World, created by their lunatic gardener Ivan. Walking around his gardens is like exploring his imagination, and that alone is worth the trip.

What do vegetables and butterflies have in common?

They both have a few tricks up their sleeves…

How does one of these seeds:

Turn into one of these?

And how does one of these:

Turn into one of these?

Two seedy sandwiches with extra lettuce coming up! Hey Mingo can you deliver these please?

It’s a busy day at the Seedy Cafe. I’m Bruno Broadbean and I run this place. We make about a hundred lunches every day, we’re really rushed off our feet. Ali Alfalfa works here too but even with her around it’s a lot of work…