Personalized Gardening Starter Kit

Donated personalized gardening starter kit to a spring conference. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Personalized Gardening Starter Kit

This spring I was one of the speakers at a state beekeeping conference focused on planting natives for bees. It’s hard to cover the topic without discussing the fundamentals of gardening, especially the need for good healthy soil. Knowing the conference would have a silent auction, I quickly made up this personalized gardening starter kit with an excellent Fundamentals of Gardening book; handmade gardening soap; gardening claws and, for a special treat, a little jar of honey that took bees visiting 100,000 flowers to make.

In addition, I shared seeds from two of my favorite plants, Cushaw pumpkins, the native North American pumpkin that most likely was at the first Thanksgiving, as well as zinnias. The zinnias are not native but they are so easy to grow and provide wonderful pollen and nectar for a variety of pollinators. For a beginning gardener, zinnias are a guaranteed win.

Alice, the silent auction winner, came up to me at the end of the conference to tell me how delighted she was with her gardening starter kit. Her son had squirreled away her yard sale gardening book so she bid on the starter kit for the book. Her family, however, is excited about the gardening claws. Her husband wants to scratch the dog with the claws and another family member thinks they would be excellent for a Halloween costume. So glad to hear they have found many other handy uses for the gardening claws!

I warned Alice the soap will last a long time so not to be thrown off by the small size. She said she will be happy to have something handy as soon as she gets in from the garden and ,in terms of the honey, she has very specific plans for that and they don’t involve sharing.

Enjoy your gardening starter kit, Alice and let me know how the seeds do in your garden!

Charlotte