Holiday Good Deeds from the Garden

As the fall moves into the holiday season, it is time to start thinking about holiday gifts. There are many ways a garden can provide some wonderful gifts for people with a wide variety of interests and pleasures.

Canning: Share Homegrown Food

Canning is an old fashioned way to preserve vegetables and fruits so they may be used over the winter months. For anyone who does canning, it is easy to grow some extra produce to use to make holiday gifts.

Who wouldn't love a jar of fruit jelly or a jar of a favorite vegetable to eat in the winter months? For people who do not garden or are afraid to do canning, a gift of canned food in the winter months is a wonderful reminder of summer and tasty too.

In these tough times there are many elders in any community who are scrimping on eating well to try to get by on a limited budget. For someone like this a gift of home made food is a treasure. You can call Social Services in the area to get contact information for those who have signed up for holiday food donations.

Share Bulbs

Flower bulbs often spread rapidly and need to be dug up to ensure that a certain flower does not take over the garden. When a gardener is dividing bulbs and digging some up to stop the spread it is a great time to create some gift bags of bulbs to give out as a gift to someone who likes to garden.

Many people who garden don't have the funds for the elaborate garden they would like to have. People who have just moved into a new home often don't have the current funds to do any gardening, though they would like to. So, ask some neighbors if they would like some of your extra bulbs or put a note up on a community bulletin board.

Donate Gardening Books

If you are bored with gardening books you've had for some time donate them to a local thrift shop before the holiday season. This will give someone to get one of the books to give out as an inexpensive holiday gift. And whoever receives the book will enjoy having a tome about gardening to read during the long winter months while they dream of spring time.

Collect Seeds

Collect seeds in the fall months as the garden is on the wane. Then make up little bags full of flower or vegetable seeds to give out as gifts to someone who has expressed an interest in gardening but is short on funds.

Sharing flower seeds is a good deed and helps the environment and the animals in nature too. Ask whoever receives the seeds to carry on the tradition and give seeds out at the end of the summer too. This will start a chain of seed sharing that will have flowers and produce growing all over town.

Give Out Pine Tree Seeds or Seedlings

A pine tree adds a burst of nature to any yard. These beautiful and tall trees provide beauty, shelter for animals, and also provide an excellent wind block.

It is easy to collect pine tree seeds. If you have pine trees in the yard collect seeds there. Or go to an area where there are numerous trees (this ensures the trees will be fertile). Then shake pine cones into a bag and the seeds will fall out.

You can use cut down old milk containers to start the seeds. Water the seeds well and put them in a sunny spot. Soon enough you will have some tiny seedlings to give out as gifts.

Sources: Personal experience making/ growing gifts.