Category: Gifts

On days when the sun shines it always seems that you can achieve anything. This morning waking to a glorious blue sky was a wonderful surprise after the cold and wet of the last few days. The vege garden is bursting along with growth – it’s hard to keep up with the caterpillars who probably think they have found paradise. I’m not too fussed as long as they leave us enough food for our dinner. Today was worm tea day – plants get fed every two weeks. I found out a few month ago that my in laws had a worm farm and weren’t using the worm tea. Now that I have told them they can use it as fertilizer and how to dilute it (1:10) we have family squabbles about who should get the supply of worm tea each time.  It has encouraged me to start thinking about starting our own worm farm as the plants just love the worm tea and it would mean we could recycle our organic waste. We presently share a small wheelie bin with my mum but if we reduced our organic waste we could perhap share our bin with a third person in the street or change to a company that only picks the bins up when you want it picked up. The worm tea would also make a great gift idea for friends who garden (although not the most fragrant gift!)

I usually use whatever old plastic pots I can find around my garage for planting. My parsley has been happy growing away in an ice-cream container for the past few months. However having a newly renovated house with lovely new carpet I was a bit nervous about house plants in terms of water accidents and water stains. A few months ago I found these great plastic pots at the Warehouse – the pot has no holes in the bottom of the container. Instead they have a section at the bottom where the water can drain to and sit and then a small plastic bung in a hole on the side to let out excess water. They are great as you can water your plants in rooms like the lounge without any spillage worries. I don’t really use the bung much as I leave the water for the plants to use through their roots. The containers are a nice design and come in three colours – neutral, green and brown with a few different sizes. They are made in Malaysia which isn’t great for carbon miles but I imagine I will keep these pots for life as they have been so invaluable. The size below are the small ones and retail for $6.99 but every now and then you can get them on sale. I’m going to pot one of these up for one of my gardening relatives for their Christmas gift.

True to NZ tradition I have just finished planting vegetables for ourselves and my mum for Labour weekend. At three punnets of six seedlings each (18 seedlings) for $9.70 and a bag of potting mix we both have our salads lettuces started off for summer. Mum told me last week that she buys bunches of parsley from the supermarket (!!!!!!) so I have planted up parsley for her in various parts of the garden. The left over parsley I have potted up for myself – it will make nice gifts in a few weeks time when it has taken off. My peas are growing nicely – this weekend will be time to plant some more, I will soak some seeds tonight for my mum too. Share your seeds around with other people – that way some will come back to you as well and you’ll get different varieties to try out. My tomatoes are going well – at least I think they are. We still had frost up to last week which hopefully is the last lot ! Talking of gardening the “My Garden” site now has a trading area http://www.mygarden.co.nz/Trade/Default.aspx?Search=1. The “Kitchen Garden” has their organic tomato seedlings for sale at the moment also Need more space? : the kitchen garden.

We received a gift of daffodils at the weekend from friends who own a lifestyle block growing daffodils. They were in bud form when we were given them but have now opened and are a beautiful sign each day that spring is on its way. It was a good reminder that small gifts can end up being some of the best gifts. Plants especially are a great gift even for people without green fingers. For those people you can pot up their plants e.g. bulbs, herbs etc so that the person has to do little but enjoy the plants. Starting early and growing from seed can make gifts a lot cheaper. When dividing bulbs at the end of spring you can package the spares nicely and use them as gifts.