Good Gifts for Gardeners

Is there a gardener in your life? Or perhaps there's a gardener you're wooing? Instead of working on my paper that's due on Tuesday, I was thinking about some good gifts for gardeners. Here are some suggestions. These are largely oriented towards vegetable gardeners, but with some creativity, could apply to flower gardeners as well.

1. Seeds
Every gardener likes seeds. This time of year, seed catalogs are arriving in the mail and gardeners are dreaming about planting season. Before your favorite gardener gets home, steal the seed catalog and thumb through it. Seed packets tend to be pretty cheap (around $3 for a 1/4 oz, usually), so you could pick up a few. I tend to like organic non-GMO seeds. Both Territorial Seed Company and Seeds of Change have good varieties. Pinetree Garden Seeds is great for cheap seed packets, should your gardener not care so much about organic non-GMO seeds.

If you do buy seed packets, make sure that the seeds you are buying will germinate and grow well in your climate. Most seed catalogs have a map of growing zones in the front or back, and codes next to the seeds that correspond to those zones. You don't want to make the mistake of buying kiwi seeds for a Northwest gardener -- those won't grow here.

2. The Northwesterner's Garden "Bible"
Seattle Tilth publishes The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide, an absolute must for a Northwest gardener. This guide tells you what to plant when, and is indispensable. It also suggests some varieties of warm season crops (peppers, eggplant, tomatoes) that do well in our short summers. If you are buying seeds for your favorite Northwest gardener, make sure you flip through this book first. Tomatoes, for example, are rather difficult to grow in our climate. You are going to want to purchase varieties Seattle Tilth suggests, like Stupice or Peacevine Cherry Tomato.

3. Walls o' water or other season extenders
As you probably read if you follow my blog, I was the only gardener on my block who had tomatoes this year. It was a cold summer. Why was I so fortunate? I was smart and encased all my summer crops in a wall o' water. These things are handy to have around -- they act like a jacket for your plants. The temperature inside the wall o' water is usually 5 to 10 degrees warmer than it is outside. Amazon.com sells these in packets of 3.

Other season extenders include garden cloches. Typically, Northwest gardeners build these out of PVC pipe and plastic. There are directions online on how to build one. This may be a large present to wrap, so you could borrow a tip from my parents and wrap up a small picture of a cloche in a box and build it with directions from the gardener. Cloches are really helpful when germinating seeds, and also act like a greenhouse, keeping the temperature warm for your plants.

4. Garden accessories
OK -- who doesn't need dirt? I'd seriously be pretty happy to find a 20-lb bag of potting soil under the Xmas tree. Come February, I'll need dirt to start my seedlings!

Pots are always a good idea. I like to use compostable pots, as they make transplanting seedlings pretty easy. Any hardware store should have these in various shapes and sizes.

Lights are great for starting plants indoors. Some people swear by a heating mat, but I've found that if you heat your house and put your little baby plants by a window, the greenhouse effect will do the job. In the Northwest, though, we don't get enough sunlight to start warm season crops in a window. You can get a fancy-shmancy light setup that's easy to adjust (this is on my Xmas list this year), or you can jury rig stuff out of construction lights with clips. Last year, I had plants all over the living room -- I clipped the construction lights to my bookshelves and used phone books as needed to adjust the height. It worked out okay, but wasn't the optimal setup. Make sure you buy a full spectrum light bulb for your plants. I think you want a CFL bulb, but ask at the garden or hardware store first.

Garden shears, watering cans, those plastic thingys you use to start plants indoors, peat pellets for starting plants -- you name it, we'll probably use it!

5. Cooking or canning supplies
I bet the vegetable gardener in your life is also a fantastic chef. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I'm a damn good cook. I think it's because I try to use super fresh ingredients -- stuff from my garden when it's growing, and stuff from the farmer's market in the winter.

There are a couple of cookbooks I suggest for gardener-chefs. How to Cook Everything, by New York Times food writer Mark Bittmann, is one of my personal favorites. I forgot to put his new one, The Food Matters Cookbook, on my Xmas list. My mom and possibly my brother are likely reading this on Facebook, so now they know. :) Anyway, How to Cook Everything is a great guide for any cook. Bittmann has some creative ways to use interesting vegetables, and has a plethora of potato and tomato recipes. His recipe for pasta with bacon and romano cheese is a favorite among both my family and friends. However, I find his recipes for veggies like kale and chard to be a bit lacking. If I have greens I want to use, I tend to reach for Simply in Season or From Asparagus to Zucchini. The latter two cookbooks have a ton of recommendations for seasonal eaters, including some creative ways to use the leafy greens that grow so well in the Northwest. Tall Guy and his friends still talk about the Swiss Chard Pie I made from the second cookbook. It was awesome.

Canning season is about a year away, but the gardener in your life could likely use some supplies. Canners can be rather expensive. If you don't want to pickle everything, you'll need a pressure canner. If you don't mind pickling, a water bath canner will suffice. Jars are always welcome, too!

Let's say that the gardener in your life loves flowers, and can't grow a tomato to save her life. But she loves farmers' markets and locally grown food. Think about purchasing a CSA share. Most farms offer summer CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), and you can sign up for them now. Walk around your local farmer's market and ask around about different options. With most places, you pay up front, in advance, and receive a 4-6 month share in the summer and fall. Prices in the Northwest range from $250-$500, depending on the size and length of time. My personal favorite is Seattle Market Gardens. For $15/week, you're supporting a low-income immigrant gardener who is growing vegetables in his or her P-Patch. The gardener growing your food uses the proceeds to purchase seeds for the following year and as an income. A friend and I did this last year, supporting Vietnamese and Hmong gardeners in South Seattle.

Another option would be to buy market bucks. In Seattle at least, the farmer's markets sell market bucks for shoppers to use at each stall. Think of it as a gift certificate to the farmer's market. I bet your favorite gardener would LOVE to find this under the tree.

6. An Actual Garden
This may involve some creativity. My parents gave me my garden at my house -- they built it and provided dirt for it. It was an awesome birthday present, and one that keeps on giving! I had to check with my landlord first to make sure digging up the yard was okay. Raised garden beds can add value to rental houses. Make sure you check with your gardener's landlord before planning this present.

If your favorite gardener is an apartment dweller or lacks the space for a garden, you have a couple of options. Urban Garden Share is like a match.com for gardeners -- it matches potential gardeners with people who have space to garden. Sign up for an account and look for a good match for your green thumb. In Seattle, these are organized by date and neighborhood. You could find one that is close by. Typically, those who own gardens and gardeners negotiate things like cost of seeds and supplies and who gets to take home the produce. Make sure this is a good match.

(Incidentally, a dating service for gardeners would be a fabulous idea. Seriously. Something like greenmatch.com could really take off...)

Sign up for a P-Patch or a community garden in your area. Be warned, though, sometimes you can wait a while on the waitlist. Most of the gardens in Seattle have a 2-3 year wait! There's been a (wonderful) explosion of interest in home gardening, likely due to the efforts of First Lady Michelle Obama and other celebrity gardeners. This translates into long waits with some gardens. (I love it that there's a gardener in the White House right now!)

7. Books and other fun things
I've come across some great reads for gardeners and those interested in food security. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver chronicles one family's journey into local, seasonal eating. It's a loving portrait of the trials and tribulations they faced as a family. It offers some great tips, and is well-written, too.

Other books include Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, about why industrial food is bad for you. Pollan is coming to speak in Seattle in January -- perhaps tickets to go see him would be a good gift for your gardener as well.

Pretty jewelry is another fabulous suggestion. Etsy.com has a number of stores that sell jewelry and homemade art. My friend Caitlin has a store on Etsy. She does some beautiful leatherwork that your gardener would likely love. Check her out at http://www.etsy.com/shop/moxieandoliver

Happy shopping!

As for a me update -- I'm doing pretty well, all things considered. Had a lovely, relaxing weekend full of friends and family. I have Rock Lobster stuck in my head today -- likely from John and Jacob's hilarious version of it while playing Rock Band last night. All in all, things are good. I'm surrounded by the love of the amazing people in my life. I'm a lucky lady, and really couldn't ask for anything more. :)