I love gardening and I love books and so most gardening books are a welcome gift at Christmas. Here are two I have received in recent months to review which I think would make excellent Christmas gifts for a gardener.
Keep Calm and Pot On – Good Advice for Gardeners by Liz Dodds would make an excellent stocking filler. It is a small book only 11cm x 13cm and would easily fit in a bag for dipping into on a journey. The book sets out to impart lots of advice and there is one idea or quote per page. It is quite an eclectic mix with quotes from Epicurus (341-270BC) through to Monty Don. My favorite quote is from Christopher Lloyd and it is one I have found myself repeating a lot since reading it in this book, “In answer to the amateur gardener’s eternally repeated question ‘When should I?’ and ‘What’s the best time to?’ I’ve concluded that nine times out of ten the answer is ‘When you’re thinking about it; when you’re in the mood.’
Interspersed amongst the quotes are bits of advice and information. These range from serious to humourous but an overriding theme to the book is how important gardening is to our health: mental and physical. It has a real feel good factor and gives you lots of little and simple ideas to improve your garden.
This is a great little book especially as a Christmas present. Its one of those books you will want to read bits out loud from to your friends and family.
My second book is Minding My Peas and Cucumbers – Quirky Tales of Allotment Life by Kay Sexton. This is an excellent present for anyone you know who has an allotment or aspires to have an allotment. I don’t know quite how to categorise this book as it is a story but also includes
lots of bits of advice and information. Kay talks about her efforts to get her own allotment and her journey though minding other people’s plots, being secretary of the allotment association to eventually getting her own plot. As any one who has experienced allotment life will know there are many characters at the sites and Kay has included a lovely selection within her overriding tale. The story which runs through holds your interest to the end but on the way you learn all sorts of things from what edibles you can grow in containers, through growing watermelons to surviving an allotment inspection.
It is a lovely read which often made me laugh out loud and I am sure would be welcome by any gardener as a present.
So instead of buying your gardener friend and relative yet more gardening gloves why not buy them a book instead