THE JOURNAL
After decades of running a successful fashion communications agency with a client-list that reads like a high-end streetwear directory (think KENZO, adidas, Vans, Stüssy and PALACE), Ms Louise Page decided to press pause.
It was 2019, and Page and her family (presciently) decided to relocate from London to the Welsh mountains, where everything slowed down and there was space to think. Abandoning the city for a rural environment allowed Page the time to focus on future planning, and with her brain fully reconfigured, she started formulating ideas around pastimes that made her happy. She’d grown up as part of a family that grew its own vegetables, and harvesting produce in the summer months was something she’d treasured. This connection with the land kick started a lockdown project that quickly became Planet Good Earth.
Things really started shaping up during the pandemic. “I’d been sowing seeds with my kids in the kitchen garden, having fun making googly-eyed vegetables,” she says. “It felt like being a child again – experiencing the joy of planting, cultivating and growing together. I felt at home, with a strong affiliation to nature. When I lived in London, I found solace in the beauty of Hackney Marshes, which were nearby. My weekends would be spent growing my own food, wandering the canals and parks, visiting local cafes and markets and reading my favourite cookery books. In 2016, I finally became a plot holder at the Pudding Mill allotments and grew vegetables, fruit and flowers for my friends and family.”
Determined to inspire others to enjoy the process of seed planting and micro-gardening, Page used the skills and knowledge from her days in fashion branding to turn her personal lockdown pursuit into something for everyone. “I’d been researching during the pandemic about how growing our own food would reduce waste and help cut the amount of land needed for farming,” she says. “Mitigate climate change and ease the biodiversity crisis by increasing habitats on agricultural land.
“I’d been fiddling with a million ideas, but Planet Good Earth resonated the most because it had purpose. It would mean children and young people could learn about climate change, composting, soil health, conserving our environment and understanding the true meaning of organic foods. I wanted to kickstart something fun and engaging that would distract kids from looking at social media. Planet Good Earth was created as a movement, a crew, something to share with friends, family, neighbours and communities.”
The result is an ever-evolving collection of “grow kits” and seed boxes. Each of which is adorned with jolly illustrations of grinning radishes or chuckling chives. You see, Page understood the importance of branding and decided to bring illustrator-extraordinaire Mr Jethro Haynes aboard. Long-time friends and collaborators, Page tasked Haynes with the job of creating eye-catching seed packets featuring characterful fruit, flowers and vegetables.
“Planet Good Earth was created as a movement, a crew, something to share with friends, family, neighbours and communities”
“We wanted to make people laugh, smile and share,” she says. “We thought it would be great to design a series of collectible seed packets that people might pin on a wall or send as a gift – something we could turn into stickers or a logo for a T-shirt. Jethro and I have been connected through London’s skateboarding scene for a long time and I was fully sold on his vibrant vibe and good energy. He had a real vision for the characters we wanted to create.”
With Haynes busy sketching out googly-eyed vegetables, Page started connecting with seed merchants and spent months researching sustainable packaging. After only 18 months of trading, the award-winning Planet Good Earth seed packets are on sale in a variety of iconic locations, including museums, farm shops and exclusive fashion boutiques. With the help of green-fingered gardeners and volunteers, their work helps cultivate a general sense of wellbeing and good mental health through gardening.
Last year, as the ARKET and MR PORTER collaboration was coming to, ahem, fruition, the creative minds behind the collection of outdoors-inspired inter-generational clothing started to think about how they could expand the message. Enter Planet Good Earth, who created some of its signature silly illustrations for the capsule collection. Teaming up within the global networks of both brands has given a volume boost to the voice of Planet Good Earth and given founder Page the means to channel the micro-gardening positivity to a much wider audience.
“We’re an Earth-friendly organisation that inspires the next generation of gardeners to be part of the environmental movement worldwide. Our initiative supports young people to protect our planet and cultivate a sustainable future. The food education programme we run is a micro-cosmos of activity-based learning that feeds back to our health, the Earth and the environment.”
Page lives by a set of mantras that inspire and sustain Planet Good Earth: “Cultivate and appreciate. Love the land. Choose to reuse.” Heady messages that many struggle to convey in a meaningful and compelling way to children. But Page has found a way.
So, for anyone struggling to get their kids to consume (let alone grow) their five-a-day, perhaps this is a brave new option.