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| Home & Garden: Gifts for Gardeners | | 12/10/2009 9:08:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
by Georgeanne Davis
Feature Writer/Calendar
Gift-giving is more problematic as the economy continues to be shaky and we become more conscious of conservation of the earth's resources, but a few gifts under a tree or a filled stocking hung from the mantle can make the season bright - especially when there's more thought than money put into the gift. Most gardeners are practical people who appreciate a down-to-earth, useful gift, so why not give the obvious - seeds.
The order form in the catalog for Seeds of Change, a company that offers 100 percent certified organic seeds, includes gift certificates that can be ordered in $10, $25, $50 and $100 amounts, and the catalog is sent along with the certificate. Renee's Garden also offers gift certificates, as well as some seed collections, such as the "Rainbow Kitchen Garden," which contains five individual packets for colorful vegetable varieties that are reliably easy to grow and rewarding for anyone new to starting a garden from seed. (They are also packaged up in a pretty envelope, always a plus for gift-giving). The Rainbow collection includes Farmer's Market Lettuce Mix, a rainbow of salad colors and textures; Garden Candy Cherry Tomatoes, red, orange and yellow; Tasty Duo Scallions, red- and green-skinned; Tricolor Bush Beans, with purple, yellow and green pods; and Tricolor Zucchini, with seeds for gold, light and dark green squash said to have "buttery" flavor (I concur; I grew Renee's "Raven" zucchinis this summer and they were rich and virtually seedless).
The Container Kitchen Garden collection, for gardening in containers or small spaces, contains five packets of compact varieties and a step-by-step brochure, "Growing Your Own Container Kitchen Garden." It includes Super Bush tomatoes; Romeo Round Container Carrots; Garden Babies Container Lettuce, which are mini-butterheads; Pot of Gold Chard, with golden stalks and green leaves; and Cameo Basil, intensely perfumed true Italian basil. Either of these packets could be combined with a trowel and gloves, or just be tucked into a stocking.
I'm a big fan of outdoor solar lights, adding to my supply as I come across them. In winter, they light up my path so there's no more stumbling around in the dark, and in summer I move them out to the garden to discourage critters from entering. (No, I have no concrete proof that this works, but after I set two spotlights and two mini-torches out among my vegetable beds, I had no predation problems.) There are beautiful decorative ones available for gifts at garden centers and home supply stores in the form of starbursts, tulips and, my favorite, dragonflies. They come with their own solar collectors/batteries and just need sun to begin operation.
Despite the availability of any recipe online, from apple pies to whoopie pies, hundreds of cookbooks are still published every year and people still enjoy reading them. This year, vintage cookbooks are all the rage. Rabelais, in Portland, is a bookstore that specializes in books about food, wine, farming and gardening - rare, out-of-print and new. But you don't have to travel to find a vintage cookbook; library bookshops and secondhand bookstores all have cooking and gardening books. Who wouldn't like to find How to Cook a Wolf, by M.F.K. Fisher, under the tree, or a retro Better Homes and Gardens casserole cookbook for gleaning some comfort food recipes? Again, packaging, packaging -handsome wooden salad servers or an Italian spaghetti fork tied on top of a tower of used, now known as vintage, cookbooks can give much pleasure at little cost.
Eliot Coleman's newest book, The Winter Harvest Handbook (Chelsea Green Publishing), is the perfect gift for any gardener, but especially one thinking about extending the season. Because it targets market gardeners, it gives a lot of information most gardeners don't need, but it's fun to have too much rather than too little information available about four-season growing. The photographs are lush, the quotes at the start of each chapter range from Smokey Robinson to Andrew Marvel, and, best of all, the threads of Coleman's constant focus on solving problems as simply and directly as possibly weave throughout the text. Whether it's inventing a better hoe, fashioning a surefire vole trap, or getting rid of flea beetles, Coleman's certainty that there is a sane and wholesome way to find a solution never wavers. It's inspiring to read about his farm's intensive harvests and realize that raising local organic food can be an economic reality in Maine all year round. This is a great addition to any gardener's library.
Finally, whatever you give, why not make it a two-fold gift by adding a card telling the recipient you've purchased a gift from Heifer International in their name? For $30 you can give a family a package of bees, the box and hive, plus training in beekeeping. A flock of geese is only $20 and because geese can lay up to 75 eggs a year, the benefits add up quickly for families in desperate need of protein and a means of income. A $50 Hope Basket of chickens and rabbits offers a struggling farmer a gift of fast-multiplying livestock. Every gift multiplies, as recipients agree to pass on their animal's first offspring to another family, who in turn agrees to pass on an animal. This is real gardener-to-gardener giving.
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