More Gift Ideas

Here are a few more gift ideas for the gardener on your list or those you might like to inspire.

Holiday Plants and Heirloom Seeds
Seeds make a great gift for that gardening friend, and heirloom seeds are some of the best. Unique varieties of tomatoes, popcorn, squash, and even flowers abound. That little packet offers a taste (sometimes literally!) of the past, and increases the diversity of our food sources. Great places to find heirloom seeds include Project Grow, Seed Savers Exchange, or Old House Gardens for nearly forgotten bulbs. You might even get a nice bundle of tasty and beautiful treats come summer! (Hint: A Project Grow garden plot makes an excellent home for those seeds, too.)

And don't forge the traditional Amaryllis and Christmas Cactus that bloom while the snow flies. Both make delightful gifts for the friend who doesn't garden, but likes a bit of color. Both are easy to care for and offer a feast for the eyes.

Tools
Tools make great gifts, and can often be found at a local store. Trowels, kneeling mats, dandelion diggers, gloves (especially the colorful Project Grow gloves!), and even plant tags are items any gardener would love to receive. And what better place to learn to use those tools than at a Project Grow class!

Treats from the Garden
Homemade jam, a jar of Grandma’s secret recipe tomato or barbecue sauce, or a pretty bundle of dried herbs from the garden make excellent gifts, too. Pair it with some homemade bread or another baked good, and winter just got a little warmer!

Gardening Books as Gifts

Each year it can be tricky to come up with unique gift ideas that don't get dusty, go out of style, or need batteries. The gift of gardening - a book, a tool, or a sample of summer's harvest - provides long-term joy and happiness. It's a way of sharing the fun of gardening, the tradition of sharing food, and offering some inspiration for new endeavors and adventures. This is the first in a series of posts about simple and relatively inexpensive gifts that can be found locally and are sure to please t he gardener and non-gardener alike.

Now that snow is falling and it's hard to get outside (or get motivated to get outside), the following books offer some inspiration and help justify snuggling into that favorite armchair. Following is a sample of the many terrific gardening books out there. Head off to your favorite local bookstore and see what other resources you can find!

Plant-Driven Design: Creating Gardens That Honor Plants, Place, and Spirit by Ogden and Lauren Springer Ogden, 2008, Timber Press. A new book about garden design that focuses on plants and plant selection, which strangely turns much of garden design around. A promising read!

Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens by Douglas W. Tallamy, 2007, Timber Press. Wildlife in the garden seems like an oxymoron until you read Tallamy's discussion of why it is so deeply integral to the success of our gardens and our very lives. Terrific photos paired with clear and compelling explanations make this a fascinating read and expands the garden almost exponentially with the turning of each page.

Great Garden Companions: A Companion-Planting Systems for a Beautiful, Chemical-Free Vegetable Garden by Sally Jean Cunningham, 1998, Rodale Press. A must-have for any gardener, Cunningham offers an excellent compendium of plant information, gardening techniques, and inspiring photographs.

Early American Gardens "For Meate or Medicine" by Ann Leighton, 1986, University of Massachusetts Press. Just one of the books about historical gardening written by Leighton, this one offers a fascinating look at colonial gardening describing techniques, plants, and philosophies. An inspiring read for anyone interested in American history or gardening.

The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans by Patricia Klindienst, 2006, Beacon Press. Knowing this book won the 2007 American Book Award is no surprise once you dip into these beautifully told stories of eleven gardens and those who tend them. Moving and delightful this book is sure to please any reader on your list.

Greens Fair Today!

Alrighty, folks! Today is the Annual Greens Market sponsored by the Ann Arbor Branch of the Woman's Farm and Garden Association at Mattheai Botanical Gardens. Project Grow is there sharing information, selling seeds and gloves, and enjoying the festive atmosphere.

Head on over to say hello, check out the tasty baked goods, fresh holiday greens, and so much more. (This is a great opportunity to explore the gardens, too!)

The Market is open from 10am to 12pm for Members, and 12pm to 4pm for the general public. See you there!

Greens Fair Volunteer Opportunity

Lend a hand at the Greens Fair this Thursday, December 4th at Mattheai Botanical Gardens from 10am to 4pm and scope out all the fun before jumping in!

Project Grow will have a table at this terrific event, and we could use a couple folks to help out. We'll be selling those great gloves, offering a preview of our 2009 classes, and talking about how much fun gardening is to anyone who stops by. How much fun is that?

Here's a schedule of shifts:
- 9:30am - 11:30am Set-up and the event itself.
- 11:30am - 2pm Event itself.
- 2pm - 4:30pm Event and Closing-up.

If you're interested in helping out, contact Sheri Repucci via email or at 734-996-3169.

Groovy Gloves for Gifts!

Slip a pair of these Project Grow gloves in a gift box this holiday season, and know you’ve given one of the snazziest (yet practical) gifts a gardener could want. Little grippy dots help you hold onto that trowel that usually gets away, and these brightly colored gems won't get lost in the swiss chard. A bargain at $10 a pair and sure to put a smile on any gardener's face, they are currently only available at the Annual Greens Market on Thursday, December 4^th at Mattheai Botanical Gardens.

Come find us at this great event put on by the Ann Arbor chapter of the National Woman’s Farm and Garden Association. You’ll find plenty of good stuff here to pair with these terrific gloves – plants, the freshest holiday greens ever, unique gifts, baked goods, and super informative demonstrations – and we hope to see you there!

Gardeners Save Seeds and the World!

The Environment Report on Michigan Radio ran a great little piece recently about the surge of interest in organic and heirloom seed varieties. Choices as simple as this help maintain the diversity of fruits and vegetables and help ensure our food security now and into the future. So, don your superhero cape, sit down with your seed catalog, and carry on!

(Don't forget about Project Grow's great heirloom seed collection, too! And we offer some terrific classes on seed saving and gardening with heirloom vegetables. If seeds aren't your thing, you can always wear that cape to the Spring Plant Sale in May.)

Photo courtesy of Devo(lutio)n. For more pictures, check out Project Grow's photo pool on Flickr.

Full Frontal Gardening with Fritz Haeg

For most of us, the garden (especially the vegetable garden) is behind the house. Tucked in the back away from public view are tomatoes, herbs, squash, and cucumbers. Zucchini surges to the front only as we desperately try to give them away during peak season. The front yard is sacred space for a tree or two, maybe a flowerbed, and most definitely for grass.

Architect Fritz Haeg (with Melissa in photo at left) overturns that notion in Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn (2008). Exploring the perceived sanctity of the front lawn and what that tells us about ourselves, Edible Estates offers literal and figurative food for thought.

Speaking this past Saturday at an event co-hosted by Project Grow and Avalon Housing, Haeg revealed a gardeners dream as grassy front lawns became lush garden spaces. Strawberries bloom on a New Jersey street corner and okra lines a sidewalk in Kansas. Kumquat and lemon trees grow in Los Angeles along with melons, cucumbers, collards, and a bevy of other vegetables.

Haeg writes that “Food grown in our front yards will connect us to the seasons, the organic cycles of the earth, and our neighbors.” (pg. 22, Edible Estates) Each of the photos mentioned above contained not just plants, but people working the gardens together, sharing the joy of getting their hands dirty in the front yard.

Aiming to create a space where everyday people could build something collectively to express unity and cooperation in a time that Haeg desperately felt needed it, the Edible Estates project continues to turn heads while turning the soil. Gardens created in Salina, Kansas; Baltimore, Maryland; Los Angeles, as well as communal gardens in affordable housing complexes in Austin, Texas and London, UK, offer a simple strategy for bringing people together and possibly even changing the world.

Haeg believes turning empty grass into productive garden space creates possibility. From a first tomato plant to the first harvest, sharing seeds and then sharing stories, gardens like those created by Project Grow and Edible Estates create a common ground of cooperation and community – the building blocks of democracy as we often think of it - in a world where so often we only see what divides us. “Full frontal gardening” is a statement about what could be best in our society and unearthing what may be most essential.

“Politicians, architects, developers, urban citizens, we all crave permanent monuments that will give a sense of place and survive as a lasting testament to ourselves and our time. We were here! These monuments have their place, but their capacity to bring about meaningful change in the way we live is quite limited. A small garden of very modest means, humble materials, and a little effort can have a radical effect on the life of a family, how they spend their time and relate to their environment, whom they see, and how they eat. This singular local response to global issues can become a model. It can be enacted by anyone in the world and can have a monumental impact.” (pg. 27, Edible Estates)