Gifts For Gardeners | Edible Landscaping Made Easy With Avis Licht

Gifts for Mom on Mother’s Day

Gifts for Gardeners, Tools No Responses »

May 022012

by Avis Licht – Do you want to make your mother happy? If she’s like me, she wants something useful and thoughtful. My sons have really nailed it over the years. Each of the suggestions below are gifts from my sons. Of course, I’m not exactly a “normal” girl, but, hey, get a gal what she wants. If your mom likes to garden consider getting her one of these:

Sturdy, lightweight and well balanced wheelbarrow

1: A light weight, well balanced wheel barrow. Seriously. Most wheel barrows are made for men and are too heavy and unwieldy. I use my wheel barrow all the time and it makes my life easier. I never want to do more work than necessary and that means never moving more weight than I have to.

Jeep Model HO-5P for Homeowners

The perfect wheelbarrow solution for around the garden. Even with 150 pounds, this corrosion-proof 5 cu. ft. wheelbarrow remains light because the tub is up front over the wheel. A steep angle of inclination assures that even a “wet” load will never spill a drop.

I've had my spade for 40 years. It looks like this only dirtier

2. A strong, well balanced spade. This one should last the rest of her life, hopefully a long one. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s worth spending more now on a good tool and having it last than having to replace one that breaks, or gets wobbly.

3. You can never go wrong with flexible, well fitting gloves. A woman’s got to keep her hands looking good and still keep them in the dirt. These gloves fit perfectly, allowing you to use your fine motor skills, unlike some of those gloves that make you want to rip them off your hands so you can get some actual work done. (Click on the photo to order a pair!)

Don’t forget to tell your mother you love her. She’ll like that too.

Helpful Kitchen Accessories for the Gardener

Composting Made Easy, Gifts for Gardeners, Tools 1 Response »

Dec 122011

Glass tea pot is elegant and beautiful

In a previous post I wrote about herbal teas from the garden and the fun of having nice tea pots. Here is a glass teapot that really shows off your tea.

There are many wonderful reasons to grow your own food. But when we harvest the bounty of onions or potatoes, we’re also left with the problem of what to do with the food that’s piled up on the kitchen counter.

One way to store tubers and bulbs is in a beautiful basket. These baskets work for onions, potatoes, small winter squash, yams and garlic.

There are different ways to store your harvest. Baskets are great.

Another vexing problem can be fruit flies. When you bring in a basketful of tomatoes or apples you can find your kitchen visited by fruit flies. Extremely annoying. These pretty glass containers will take care of those pesky flies with no harmful chemicals.

Lures contain yeast, sugar and other natural ingredients

I’ve saved the best for last though. We’re always looking for a good way to store composting scraps in the kitchen and finally someone has made a bucket that fits under the sink with a good tight top. I mean really, it’s about time. You can find all these useful kitchen helpers at Gardener’s Supply Company.

Finally a good compost bucket to store out of sight

Winter Work Attire for your Edible Landscape

Gifts for Gardeners No Responses »

Dec 052011

Warm work gloves

Whether the weather is windy or whether the weather is cold, we gardeners still love to be outside. Winter rarely holds us back. But still, even an Englishman needs warm attire for the cold and rainy days.

A good pair of gloves can almost literally save your life. Ok, maybe not your life, but certainly your fingers. These insulating, strong work gloves will serve you or your favorite gardener well outdoors. And they are not expensive. A glove seems like such a simple thing, yet it is important that it fits your hand for flexibility and dexterity.

I highly recommend these gloves! When you go to The Gardener’s Supply website you’ll find lots more styles of gloves.

Next after your hands – your feet! One must have warm, dry feet to stay outside in the cold and damp. Women like to look good no matter where they are. Even slinging mud in a rain storm to clear the sidewalk. Why not get her a pair of lively rubber boots?

Don’t forget your head! Really need to keep that warm. This monkey hat will help you stand out from the crowd. What kind of hat do you like to wear?

Different strokes for different folks.

What lovely lady wouldn't want these wellies?

Herbs for Teas and Teapots for Herbs

Gifts for Gardeners, Ornamental/edible plants No Responses »

Nov 192011

A variety of teapots will always come in handy

One of the easiest edibles to produce in your own home garden is a drinkable. Herbal teas are easy to grow, delicious and good for you. One can always buy dried tea at the store, but fresh herb tea is another thing altogether. The fragrance and aroma goes straight to the brain and release those happy endorphins.

Mint in its many forms: spearmint, peppermint, lemon balm, and other herbs: raspberry leaf, lemon verbena, rose hip, chamomile, comfrey, nettle. The list goes on and on. Even the smallest garden can grow herbs for tea. When you grow your own, you know that it is clean and organic. And best of all, you can pick it and use it straight from the garden at its most nutritious.

After picking your leaves, wash carefully, then rub them together to let the essential oils out. Add the herbs to a teapot or directly to a mug or cup. For each cup of tea, add approximately 2 to 3 teaspoons of fresh leaves and/or flowers. Slice rose hips in half before adding.

This tea cup came with its own strainer.

A beautiful teapot or tea cup with strainer makes a wonderful gift. They don’t need to be expensive to be delightful. One of the signs of a good teapot is a strainer to put the tea leaves in. You can then remove it from the teapot or the cup when it is done steeping.

Everyone can enjoy their favorite tea if you have several small teapots available for making different teas. Glass teapots are very elegant. But apparently very breakable, which is why I don’t have a picture of mine to show you.

For those of you with a little Irish in your soul, you can add a little something to your tea to warm you up on those extra cold winter nights. I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out what that is.

Enjoy!

Small and elegant with its own strainer. A classic look.

Who could resist this sweet cup with its own top

Gifts for Gardeners – Pruning Tools for your Edible Landscape

Gifts for Gardeners, Tools No Responses »

Nov 182011

You can make delicate cuts with this saw

When you’re working in the garden, it is so satisfying to have a good tool. Whether it’s for pruning, raking or digging, you want your tool to feel strong and make the work easier. It makes no sense to get a cheap tool that doesn’t last and doesn’t do the work well.
Since there are myriads of tools out there, I’d like to share with you my favorites. It’s also nice at this time of year to give a well made tool as a present.

A well made tool is a great delight

Pruning tools include, hand pruners like this Fiskar:

When looking for a hand tool, you want it to fit into your hand comfortably, be easy on the wrist, and be adjustable at the blade, so that you can loosen or tighten it.

Hand saws are important for pruning branches larger than an inch in diameter. You need to make clean cuts. And you don’t want the blade to start getting loose.

For Fall pruning, loppers are also an important tool. You want the handle long enough to create leverage but not so heavy that you can’t use it for extended periods of time.

Strong enough and not too heavy. Excellent for Fall and Winter pruning chores.

And finally for those hard to reach places you need a long handles pruner. You can extend the handle, prune or saw with the attached blade. This is helpful for branches where you don’t actually want to climb the tree.

The hardest part of pruning overhead, is looking up. By this, I mean that you can get a serious crick in your neck when working overhead. Be sure to take plenty of breaks and stretch.

With these tools you can do most of your winter pruning that doesn't require a chain saw or climbing ropes!

Heirloom Seed Companies for the Edible Landscape

Gifts for Gardeners, Native Plants, Ornamental/edible plants, Plant information 2 Responses »

Sep 162011

SEEDS, SEEDS AND MORE SEEDS

Seeds I use (click to enlarge)

I recommend that you get seeds that are easy to germinate, will have excellent taste, and that are organically grown. Heirloom seeds have been used and grown by generations of gardeners and deemed worthy. They are also open pollinated and not hybridized. This means if you let your plants go to seed, you can harvest that seed for next season’s crop.

You can find many varieties of fruits and vegetables in seed catalogs. Start by picking your favorite foods and ones that taste best home grown. Tomatoes are a perfect example. It’s hard to ship a ripe tomato, and unripe ones never taste good. You can find many unusual tomatoes in the catalogs that you would never see in a store.

I also recommend starting out with seeds that are easy to germinate. A rule of thumb is the larger the seed the easier it is to grow. A bean seed is large and you can put it deep enough in the soil that it will not dry out quickly. A small seed, like carrot seed, has to be kept on the surface of the soil and kept consistently moist. It’s a little harder to get good germination from these seeds. Some seeds are better sown in pots and transplanted and others need to be sown directly in the ground. To find out about your seed be sure to read the directions on the packet, or look it up online.

Just keep trying and experimenting. Starting plants from seeds can be challenging, but also incredibly rewarding. The following are some great seed catalogs that carry heirloom and open pollinated seed. When you click on the catalogs below you will find that they have a lot of information about what to grow and where to grow and when to grow your chosen seeds.

California Poppy seed from my garden

In the picture on the left you can seed the pods of California Poppies from my garden. They’re easy to pick and wonderful to sow in the Fall. To buy them is fairly expensive. To save your own is free and way more fun.

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