Sprout is a pencil that wants to be a plant when it grows up. This is an ordinary hard pencil suitable for writing and drawing that, once its life as a writing implement is over, can be planted and then eaten…
That’s right – you cut down a tree to make a pencil, then grow a new plant from that pencil. I love it!
In this particular case I have two pencils that include coriander seed in the end. So once I’ve sharpened my pencil one too many times, I can plant it and then use the results in my favourite soup.
In the interests of being a good daughter I gave one of the pencils I got sent to my mum, who said this:
Having been given a special pencil which purports to grow, I have to be honest I was a little sceptical. A pencil to use for a while then plant in order to grow a coriander plant…not something I had come across before. I assumed that if the seed was in the one end waiting for planting, then the writing end would be very basic and probably scratchy. I was wrong. Once sharpened and used I found the pencil to be of high quality – dark enough to read and soft enough to erase should it be necessary. How long it will take before it is short enough to warrant planting instead of writing with I am not sure, but so far so good. And I like coriander, so I look forward to eating that as well.
She’s absolutely right. It is a nice pencil to use. Sounds silly but let’s face it there is no point in a pencil (forgive the unintended pun) that does something out of the ordinary if the pencil itself is not very nice to hold or has a terribly scratchy writing end. I know a nice pencil when I get hold of one, and this is a nice pencil.
I was going to wait until either mine or my mum’s pencil was ready to plant before I wrote this post. I thought it was taking too long and I couldn’t bring myself to snap the pencil to make it quicker, so you’ll have to watch out on instagram for photos of the grant planting when it occurs.
I absolutely love products like this. The inventor has taken something we all use every day and turned it into something even better. If I was to ever invent something I’d want it to match up to Sprout. I hope you all get one!
What do you think? Comment below...