The art of organic gift giving

Gardening gifts offer a personal touch that recipients will know comes from your heart as well as your garden. From carefully saved seeds to lovingly potted succulents, these presents carry the essence of your garden’s bounty. Sharing your time to help someone else cultivate their green space adds an invaluable dimension to gift-giving. And there’s no reason why we can’t give such gifts all year round! Here’s a few ideas from our writers.

Packets of seeds from your garden

Growing your own food from seeds you’ve collected from previous crops closes the food growing loop, saves money and brings immense satisfaction. Saving your own seeds over time allows those cultivars to adapt to local conditions, helping your plants be better adapted to our changing climate. Saving seeds protects heritage varieties and their stories from being lost, and growing from seed creates less landfill from seedling punnets. Giving them to fellow gardeners, particularly in your area, is passing on the growing goodness. Karen Sutherland

Pot up a present

Make a simple but gorgeous gift by potting up succulents from your garden or balcony. Succulents such as echeverias, which have multiplied, can be divided into more plants by gently pulling apart or cutting with sharp snips or a knife. Aloe is another option. Allow offshoot ends to dry and callous over for a day or so, to avoid rot. Pot up using succulent potting mix and make sure your pots have adequate drainage holes. Karen Sutherland

Make a bouquet garni

A bouquet garni (French for garnished bouquet) is a small bunch of herbs, tied together with a long piece of string. You use it in soups, stews, sauces and stock to improve depth of flavour and add piquancy. Hang a bouquet garni into any dish that’s cooked for more than a few minutes, allowing time for the flavours of the herbs to be absorbed. Remove the bunch before serving. I always use my herbs fresh, but they can be dried in their bunches, and in fact can make simple gifts, with a card attached, for friends and family. Or the leaves can be crumbled and put into muslin bags. Penny Woodward

For the bees

Many Australian native bees rely on old or dead trees for habitat and nesting sites. Although we need to be careful in the hot summer months when fire danger is high, think about the bees before cutting down old trees. Another option (and a gift you can give to others) is to tie together a bunch of hollow stems then hang in a tree to increase the diversity of habitat for your bees. Penny Woodward

The gift of time

Someone in your life thinking about starting a garden? Or maybe you’ve been thinking about joining a local community project but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Or you might have been promising yourself a raised bed or potting up bench. Holidays are the time for such projects: pop a gift card in your friend’s mailbox, with an IOU for an afternoon helping in their garden; head to Community Gardens Australia if you need to be pointed in the right direction for one nearest you; get all that old timber or used bricks you’ve been putting aside and get started on your own project. There’s no time like the present!

For the chooks (or chook owners)

Jessamy Miller has a few ideas for the chooks in your henhouse or maybe for friends who have shared their fresh eggs with you.

Exercise gear

A hanging perch provides entertainment for birds, and builds muscles and balance. Swings are easy to make, an appropriate piece of wood and strong rope or wire would do the job. However, there is a swing designed especially for chickens that you can order online if you aren’t handy. Who knew?

Look at me

It’s in a chicken’s nature to perch in a high spot so they can survey their terrain. Mine enjoy standing on tree-stump rounds, or you could make a podium using brightly painted concrete blocks. An old ladder or appropriate tree branch upcycled into a multi-level perch will maximise vertical space.

Many podium lovers enjoy preening in front of a mirror too, so if you see one in hard rubbish, whip it home and fix it to the wall of the chook pen.

Treat dispenser

A treat dispenser will give chickens stimulation as they roll it around to get the grain or pellets to fall out. You can buy chicken-treat dispensers online, or repurpose one for dogs, but I made my own from a recycled 600ml water bottle. I punctured holes around the walls with a corkscrew, filled it with scratch grains, put it in their run, then enjoyed the show. It worked so well I made a hanging version, with two holes punctured in the bottom. Each time they pecked, a few grains of wheat fell out. It kept us all entertained for hours.

Music

This year my chooks are getting the gift of music. Inspired by an online clip of hens pecking at a xylophone installed on their pen wall, I picked up a paint-free xylophone at the local op shop. I reckon I’ll have no trouble training the girls to peck at it in harmony, starting with a few carols.

Another gift for the gardener in your life is a subscription to our magazine! It’s easy to arrange a gift for a friend (or yourself).