Still thinking about gifts for your loved ones?
We’ve had a think about some great Christmas gift ideas for getting outdoors, getting your hands dirty, helping you celebrate and helping you to relax. Here’s our four hot ideas:
- A pot, some potting mix and herb seeds. Growing herbs in pots is simple. Using a good potting mix like Yates Potting Mix with Dynamic Lifter means that the natural fertiliser (seaweed, decomposed manure and blood and bone) is already mixed into the soil. Basil, Rosemary, Thyme and Coriander are all versatile herbs that are great for eating.
- A pet chook. One of the best things you can do with your food scraps (apart from composting them and using them on your veggie patch) is feeding them to chooks and getting delicious bright yellow eggs and mountains of amazing chook poo fertiliser in return. Check the local council rules (Lake Macquarie and Newcastle) on keeping chooks before proceeding. Then, check out Rhode Island Reds and Ostralorp varieties. They lay well and are beautiful animals.
- A live Christmas tree. Why bother dusting off that plastic Christmas tree when you could have a real tree that smells like Christmas? Planting a real tree in a pot means you can bring it inside for the days over Christmas . Or you can plant it in the garden for a permanent Christmas tree effect. Just add tinsel and some baubles. We found some nice varieties at Heritage Gardens Nursery at East Maitland.
- Finska. After all the great food and festivities, you might feel like a bit of movement; but not too much. Finska involves lobbing a piece of wood at other pieces of wood. It’s so much fun.
We hope these help inspire you. Of course, you could also give that someone special a backyard makeover as a present (but we would say that wouldn’t we). Enjoy!