Free, Inexpensive and Thoughtful Gifts
With the cost of living going up, here are some ideas to make Christmas a little more affordable and a lot more thoughtful:
🌱 Pair our free downloadable colouring in pictures with a box of crayons or pencils for the kids. Not only are you encouraging creativity, you’ll also be supporting a love of nature as our drawings are nature themed, some are even educational!
🌱 Print out some of our free recipes and make a batch of biscuits or a cake to go with it. There’s nothing quite like the gift of homemade goodness. All our recipes have been tried and tested on kids, family and friends. Wrap them up in a French Linen tea towel and tie some twine or ribbon and you’ve got yourself a thoughtful, delicious and sustainable Christmas gift.
🌱 We have lots of gardening tips on our website and social media pages. Another lovely idea is to buy an inexpensive diary and scatter pieces of gardening advice throughout. Personalise it by writing a Christmas message in the front cover and place a packet of seeds inside as a bookmark.
My Auntie Judy’s Christmas Pavlova
Passed down from my auntie, to my mum and then to me, this is one of the easiest desserts to make and always wows a crowd. I have teenage boys and usually need to double the recipe to accommodate big appetites.
INGREDIENTS | Serves 8
Meringue:
🎄 6 egg whites
🎄 1 cup caster sugar
🎄 1½ teaspoons white vinegar
🎄 1 tablespoon cornflour
🎄 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
Topping:
🎄 1½ cups (375ML) single (pouring) cream
🎄 ½ cup fresh raspberries
🎄 ½ cup fresh blueberries
🎄 ½ cup fresh strawberries, hulled and cut in half
🎄 Optional extra - icing (confectioners) sugar for dusting
METHOD
Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F). Mix the egg whites with an electric mixer until they are quite stiff.
Add the sugar a spoonful at a time, beating well to dissolve each quantity. Add the cornflour with the last amount of sugar. Whisk for a further 6 minutes or until the mixture is stiff and glossy.
Fold in the vinegar & vanilla essence.
Pile onto a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper &, using a spatula, shape to form a 20cm mound. I make a round Pavlova.
Reduce the oven temperature to 120°C (250°F) & bake for 1 hour 30 minutes or until crisp & dry.
Turn the oven off & allow the pavlova to cool completely in the oven, preferably overnight.
Place the cream in a bowl & whisk until soft peaks form.
Place the pavlova on a cake stand or plate and top with the cream and berries. Dust with icing sugar to serve.
Jobs for the Garden
There’s always something to do in the garden. Here’s our top tips for the start of summer and getting your garden gorgeous for Christmas.
🌺 Cut back French lavender now to maintain shape and encourage new growth. English lavender should be just about to burst into flower, so make sure you leave it to share its purple beauty with the bees & anyone who enjoys your garden.
🌺 Wisteria can be pruned as flowers finish & to maintain rampant growth.
🌺 Prune back bulbs.
🏡 Raise the notch on your lawnmower by one or two levels in preparation for the warmer months ahead. This will help maintain moisture in the ground & encourage deeper roots.
🏡 Continue mulching your garden. Mulch truly is one of the best gifts you can give your plants. It helps to maintain moisture, suppress weeds, increase organic matter, even out soil temperatures, & also makes the garden look fab. Our preference is lucerne, sugar cane or pea straw. For bare beds, mulch to 10cm. If topping up, mulch to 5cm.
🌹 Deadhead roses at the beginning of summer to ensure the next flush of blooms at Christmas.
🫑 Plant out your veggie beds with summer crops. We like lettuce, beans, corn, zucchini, pumpkins, beetroot, basil, eggplant & capsicums. For a full list of what to plant and when, take a look at our Cool Climate Planting Guide.
Gifts $15 and Under
🎁 Our gorgeous new The Avid Gardener Activity Book ($14).
🎁 Give the gift that keeps on giving. We have a beautiful range of quality seeds all $6 a packet. Designed, produced and packed locally supporting multiple small business. You could also include some lovely responsibly sourced wooden seed labels $9.50 for a pack of 20.
🎁 A pair of gardening gloves is always a great gift! Try these Australian-made Enviro Bee Gloves, they’re just $15 a pair. We use them everyday in our client gardens so we can assure they really do work! For the junior gardener, consider the gorgeous Junior Bee Gloves, also just $15 a pair and also fabulous!
🎁 Who doesn’t love stationary? On our website, you’ll find some gorgeous locally designed, printed and packed (all in Orange, NSW) gift cards starting from $2. Buy the whole set for $12 and they’ll come in a free Avid Gardener gift bag.
Looking for Something a Bit More Substantial?
🎁 We have a range of beautiful gift boxes curated by gardeners for gardeners:
The Garden Starter Gift Box | The Little Gardeners Starter Gift Box
The Seasoned Gardeners Gift Box | The Gardeners Self- Care Gift Box
“The love of gardening is a seed once sown” - Gertrude Jekyll
Comentários