WANT TO KNOW WHAT GIFTS VEG GARDENERS REALLY NEED THIS CHRISTMAS? WE CAN HELP
Gardeners’ gift guides make us wince. If you’re serious about trying to grow veg, there are more useful things to find in your stocking than a scented candle, a herb planter shaped like a frog, or a funny hanging sign saying “Don’t Ask, I’m In the Garden”. Please, gift-givers: if there’s a zombie gardener in your life, put down that macramé hanging pot, walk away from the Sussex trug. Instead, consider giving them one of these 10 fabulous bits of gardening kit*. Then stand back and wait for the gratitude.
*We use all of these, btw, or versions of them – click on the subheads for links. And just so you know, we’re not getting paid to say it.
1 A whetstone
Gardening is largely about cutting things. For that reason, most gardeners will already have a favourite knife, and a maybe a pair of shears. But if you don’t keep them super-sharp, they make every harvesting or pruning job slow and cumbersome. Used regularly, a basic whetstone will refine a blade to a killer edge and keep you flying. But it takes a bit of skill to use well – so we prefer this little multipurpose sharpener. It fits in your pocket, and refines the edge of secateurs, scissors, knives and even hoes with a few quick strokes. Adorably, there’s a reservoir of oil and a little sponge in the handle, for oiling the blade – using this feels a bit like putting lip gloss on before stabbing someone.
2 A roll of bird netting
Draped over a veg bed, this is the only guaranteed way to protect overwintering kale, sprouting broccoli and cabbages from being stripped to the ribs by pigeons, and summertime strawberries, blackcurrants, cherries and other soft fruits disappearing wholesale into the local blackbird population. Get the type with smaller holes, so that little birds can’t squeeze through and get stuck underneath. Meanwhile, if you’re wondering what your gardening acquaintance will drape it over, how about…
3 A coil of MDPE water pipe
Both blue mains-water pipe and the narrower black irrigation pipe are pretty rigid, but they also cut easily into lengths with a hacksaw. The combination makes them idea for building cloche hoop tunnels, where you stick the ends of each length over some kind of support pushed into the ground – bamboo canes or, better, short lengths of rebar – then you cover them with whatever: bird net, UV-rated polythene. Or…
4 A roll of insect mesh
This is the last coil/roll, promise – but it’s a good one. A kind of super-heavy-duty net curtain, insect mesh is finely woven enough that even champion wrigglers like cabbage white butterfly, aphids and carrot fly can’t squeeze through and onto your crops, where they will inevitably wreak havoc. Insect mesh lasts pretty much forever – our roll is still going strong after 12 years – and means you don’t have to use any kind of pesticide, which makes it not only a good Christmas present for a gardener, but an even better one for biodiversity.
5 A box of 100 wooden tongue depressors
No but really. For a doctor, tongue depressors are handy for keeping unwanted bits of mouth out of the way while they peer into your throat and make you say “Ah”. For a gardener, they’re a bigger, cheaper and 100% more compostable alternative to plastic plant labels. Which should also make you say “Ah”.
6 A Sharpie fine-tip permanent marker
A label is not a label unless you label it. And while you can use a pencil or a Biro to inscribe your tongue depressors with all the necessary info about what seed you sowed/seedling you pricked out, after about 30 seconds the wind, sun and rain will have washed it all off. Hence the Sharpie. TBH, even Sharpie ink tends to fade when its left outside for months, but hey – that means you can relabel the tongue depressors and use them again next year (In the garden. Not in your mouth.)
7 A dual-purpose pH and moisture meter
Knowing your soil’s pH – how acid or alkaline it is – makes a big difference when growing veg. Broccoli, cabbage and other brassicas need a slightly alkaline soil if they’re not going to suffer from a nasty disease called club root; potatoes need a slightly acid soil to stop them suffering from an equally unpleasant condition called scab. Meanwhile, just looking at the surface of your soil won’t tell you how much water there is available for your plants roots deeper down, where it really matters. So these dual-purpose probes – two metal prongs with a read-out at the top – are dual-purpose useful. Use them a few weeks before planting to test your pH, and add lime or manure to alter the pH as necessary. And use them through the growing season to check soil moisture and avoid potentially damaging (and definitely wasteful) over-watering.
8 A full-spectrum UV lightbulb
For good under-cover seed germination, you need good steady warmth. If you have a greenhouse with an electrical supply, you can buy thermostatically controlled heat mats to stand your seedling trays on and get ahead with early-starters like tomatoes, peppers and aubergines. But a greenhouse with an electrical supply exists only in the dreams of many zombie gardeners, who instead will often start their seeds in the warmth of their home – on a windowsill, on the kitchen table, on the floor by the door onto the balcony… The trouble is, in most cases seedlings germinated indoors won’t get enough all-round, high-quality UV light to avoid going all spindly and floppy, even if you put them right by a window. A full-spectrum UV bulb, hung up 20cm or so above seed trays, solves this problem, allowing you to make use of your nice warm house to grow nice warm seedlings that are also strong and sturdy. And it could also double up as a Christmas light. Though that would be a bit sad.
9 A pack of really tall bamboo canes (and a ball of jute twine)
Anyone who wants to grow beans – a protein and carbohydrate-rich staple of the apocalypse-survival garden – needs to provide something for them to climb up. And we do mean up: runner beans can easily climb 7ft without breaking a sweat. You can use poles propped on old ladders, trellis or even chain-link fence to support them, but long, 20mm+ thick bamboo canes are more versatile: knot them together using your twine into all manner of climbing supports, from wigwams to A-frames. Taken down at the end of the season and stored under cover, the canes will last for years -and once they start to split and break, they have plenty of other zombie-garden uses, from row markers to sticky-uppy bits that keep cats off your seed beds.
10 Our book
Sorry, we were bound to say this. Still, who doesn’t need a practical and entertaining guide to growing all the fruit and veg you need to survive in, or out, of an apocalypse? Come the end of the world, or even just the end the month, it could help keep you alive. Which, with the best will in the world, is not something you can say about a macramé hanging pot. Happy Christmas shopping, peeps!
UNDER COVER Starting seeds anywhere other than directly into the ground outside is known as “sowing under cover”. So germinating seeds in a tray on a windowsill means you are growing under cover. Germinating them in a tray on a windowsill in the MI6 building means you are growing under cover undercover. (Though this is a rubbish joke. Because everyone knows it’s the MI6 building, right?)
