“Perfect gifts for gardeners this holiday season - Bangor Daily News” |
| Perfect gifts for gardeners this holiday season - Bangor Daily News Posted: 04 Dec 2009 08:23 PM PST What would be the perfect Christmas gift for each of the gardeners on your list this year? I mean true gardeners, people with a passion for cultivating and nourishing the soil, those who do their own digging and planting. While expanding last year's list, I still believe the best possible gift would be a pickup load of steaming composted goat manure, personally delivered in early spring, as soon as the soil can be worked. A promised pile of this aged mix of manure and barn litter, now dubbed "Nannyberries," is sure to bring a smile to any serious gardener's countenance on Christmas day. Lynne Ahlblad and Barbara Brooks, owners and operators of Seal Cove Farm, have gift certificates for the finest goat manure compost that money can buy. Come spring, you or the recipient of your gift can pick up the "black gold" at their farm, located in Lamoine on Route 184, and meet the goats while you are there. Be sure to call ahead, 667-7127, to let them know that you are coming. Another welcomed gift, particularly after this past season's woes, would be a personally assembled Slug Kit. It should contain a box of diatomaceous earth to apply around slug-sensitive plants after every rain — I'm not sure this really works, but it keeps the gardener's mind off the problem for a while; an old coffee can to collect hand-picked slugs along with a pound of salt to dissolve them; and a notebook with pencil for keeping a tally of the season's kills — the numbers become impressive and good fodder for over-the-fence discussions. For the gardener who prunes, consider a personally assembled Pruning Tool Care Kit. It should include a sharpener for the blades of hand pruners and loppers, a small can of oil (Felco 980 spray or 3-in-one motor oil) for lubricating the moving parts of pruning tools, several balls of steel wool for removing rust and pitch, a bottle of isopropyl alcohol for sterilizing tools after each use, and a spray bottle for the alcohol. The sharpener and oil should be available at garden centers or The Felco Store. Any serious gardener will appreciate a roll of natural jute twine, at least 500 feet or more. It has dozens of uses around the garden, from tying up tomato plants to binding bean poles, and it is biodegradable. Pieces too short to be saved will eventually rot, or find their way into birds' nests. Equally essential to any garden are bamboo poles and wooded garden stakes, 6 to 8-feet long. There are never enough, as the old ones get shorter every year. A roll of Velcro self-gripping tape to use as plant ties will make any gardener happy. Strong enough to hold tomato plants to their stakes or to support a vine against a trellis, the green tape can be cut to any length and reused year after year. Find it at Gardener's Supply Company, if not at your favorite retailer. A native bee nest box is a gift that keeps on giving, ensuring pollination of garden flowers year after year. Directions for making your own nest boxes can be found at http://gage.unl.edu/ag/BeeBoxes.htm#plans. Ready-made boxes are available at several online stores and are starting to show up at local retailers. Give the serious composter on your list a bale or two of straw (not hay, which contains weed seeds), a few bags of dry shredded leaves, or a truck-load of seaweed, collected above the high tide line, of course, to be delivered in spring. How about a "Soil Test Gift Certificate"? You can get the sample boxes and forms, including instructions, from your local University of Maine Cooperative Extension Office. A few years ago I presented Marjorie with a shallow terracotta bowl planted with paperwhite naricissus. I had planted them about a month before Christmas and kept them in a cool, dark basement to form roots. On Christmas day she placed them in a sunny window and by the end of January they were in full bloom, filling the house with their perfume. Marjorie still remembers those paperwhites. They were the perfect gift. Send queries to Gardening Questions, P.O. Box 418, Ellsworth 04605, or to rmanley@shead.org. Include name, address and telephone number. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
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