We’ve teamed up with Diversity Honeys who import fairtrade garden products. Some of them overlap a bit with the products that we already sell, so they’re going into the Woolly Good Deals and when they’re gone we probably won’t get any more unless they turn out to be weirdly popular. You never can tell. We’ve been scratching our heads a bit over the coir and rubber kneeler. It looks like a giant pot scourer. It’s made from the thick layer of coir used in posh natural-material mattresses, so it’s nice and springy. You wouldn’t want to use it while wearing shorts, it’s a bit scratchy. But on the other hand, it cushions very nicely, it’s naturally springy and definitely protects your knees. We think it might appeal to people kneeling on concrete floors with mechanical-type things to fix. See what you think.

A lot of the products are made of Fair Trade rubber. The rubber is cultivated by local farmers in forests that have existed for centuries. Many of these forests are under threat of being felled for palm oil or beef production. By generating income from the rubber trees, we’re helping to protect the forests and provide a valuable income for the locals.

Have a look at the very practical and excellent grippy-soled Fair Trade rubber garden shoes. They are perfect for slipping on to do garden jobs when a full pair of wellies is too much and a pair of Crocs is too little. 

Then there are a batch of products that use Himalayan sheep wool. These include  Sheepwool pellets  - natural fertilizers that slowly release nutrients, and Cocowool peat-free compost enriched with these pellets. There are organic wool mulch mats made of a lovely fine sheep wool, that have a pleasant sheepiness about them which indicates they still have pest-deterring lanolin in. They are made with the first wool in India to be certified organic – read more about the Himalana™ project here: https://prolana.com/en/pages/himalana-fairly-traded-organic-wool.

There are A LOT more products to list, I’ll let you know when we’ve got more. We keep pulling items out of the pallets and exclaiming, “Ooh, this would be useful”. A few gardeners in the team have already taken things home to try out. Watch this space!