Grow Your Own Gifts This Christmas
What’s your favourite homegrown gift to give or get?
Grow your own gifts this Christmas
Grow your own flowers for Christmas
- Amaryllis
- Hyacinths
- Paper white daffodils
Make A Seed Box.

Make Seed Bombs
Give Plants
Make A Kokedama
- Firstly, select what plants to give.
You can use any types of plants for a kokedama as long as they will fit comfortably in your home when hanging.
- Remove the plant by its roots. Shake off any loose old soil.
- Mix your moss and soil together and dampen with water till it clumps together.
- Make a soil ball. Remove a chunk of soil and moss from the bucket or plastic bag and roll it into a thick, firm ball.
Place the roots of your plant inside and form a ball of soil around the plant.
Make the ball big enough to completely cover a plant’s roots. When you’re done, set the ball aside.
- Secure the plant’s roots with moss.
Use some sphagnum moss, which you can buy online or at a garden center.
Wrap the moss around the plant’s roots and soil ball, until you have a thick layer of moss.
Tie this up with string to secure it all together.
Remember to leave a long piece of string at the end so you can hang your Kokedama.
To look after the kokedama
Mist your plants daily with a water sprayer. You can also sit your kokedam in a tray of pebbles to soak up water like thie picture above .
Edible Gifts
Before I mention the edibles I want to introduce my bible! This Preserves book by Pam Corbin is amazing. As a novice it explains everything so well and has everything you’ll ever need to know to make amazing preserves, stores and gifts from your home grown goodies.
If growing and preserving is something you would like to try or even take further this book will show you the way. I’d really recommend it to anyone!
Raspberries
- Ice cream or dessert sauce
- Jam or Jelly
- Flavoured cordials or alcohol
Lemons
- lemon syrup
- lemon curd
- lemonade
Sloes And Hedgerow Berries
- Jam
- Haw Ketchup
- And the traditional sloe gin. Here is the recipe I use. Leave it to sit in a dark cupboard for as long as you can, usually 8 weeks and drink neat or with lemonade or tonic.
Tomatoes
- Canned sun-dried toms
- Pasta sauces.
- You can also use up left over green tomatoes in chutney
Chillies
Apples
- Apple juice
- Jam
- Cakes
- Dried apple slices
- Flavoured drinks
- Chocolate apples
It may be easier to ask what you can’t use apples for.
Brambles ( Blackberries )
- Jam/jellies
- Bramble liqueur

Elderflower Cordial
15 heads of elderflower
500g caster sugar
4 tablespoons quality runny honey
2 unwaxed lemons
- Wash the elderflower well, picking off any bugs.
- Place the sugar and honey in a large saucepan with 1 litre of water. Gently bring to the boil, until all the sugar has dissolved, then remove from the heat.
- Finely grate in the lemon zest and add the elderflower upside down, making sure the flowers are completely submerged.
- Squeeze in the juice from one of the lemons, and slice the other and add it to the pan. Put the lid on and leave to one side to infuse for 24 hours.
- When you’re ready to strain your cordial, line a fine sieve with muslin over a large bowl (if you don’t have muslin, you can use good quality kitchen towel) and pour through the cordial.
- Store in sterilised bottles or jars and drink diluted with water, soda or Prosecco. YUM!!
Make Ice-cream Syrup
- Roughly chop around 1kg of rosehips (the small ones. The large hips aren’t quite as easy to prepare) in a food processor in small batches, then transfer to a large stock pot and add 1.5 litres water.
- Bring them the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 15 minutes.
- Strain through a double layer of muslin, letting the pulp sit for a good half hour so that all the juice passes through.
- Do this twice, with a clean bit of muslin so you remove all the irritating little hairs.
- Measure the rosehip juice into a large saucepan. For every 500ml, add 330g sugar.
- Heat slowly, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil and boil for 3 minutes, skimming off any scum if necessary.
- Decant immediately into your hot sterilized bottles and seal.
I keep mine chilled in the fridge and it keeps 4 months or so.
Homemade Bakes

Chutney

Infused Oil
- chilli oil,
- rosemary or
- garlic infused oil
- 10 dried chillies, preferably a mixture of green and red
- 1 pint (570 ml) sunflower oil
Method for Chilli Oil:
- Trim the chillies, and remove the seeds. crush into small flakes. You could also use dried chilli flakes if you prefer.
- Put into a warm, sterilized jar.
- Heat the oil to around 180ºC and then pour it over the chillies in the bottle/jar and cover tightly.
- Leave to stand for 1 to 2 weeks and then strain through 2 thicknesses of muslin.
- Pour into a sterilized bottle and seal with a sterilized top.
It’s great to experiment with herbs and spices here
Make Flavoured Tea.
- Mint
- Cranberry
- Raspberry
- Lemon and lime
- Lemon balm
Flavoured Vinegars
- Raspberry
- Elderberry
- Rosemary and garlic
Soothing Gifts
- Lip balm
- Hand cream
- Or soothing bath salts all make a lovely gift.
Lip Balms

Bath Salts
- Baking soda
- Citric acid
- Epsom salt
- And corn-starch
- Essential oil
- Food colouring
- First, mix the dry ingredients (baking soda, Epsom salts, corn starch, and citric acid) together in a bowl
- Mix up the wet ingredients (oil, water, essential oil, and food coloring). …
- Slowly add the liquid to the dry mixture. …
- Press the mix into your silicone molds, cookie cutters or sand moulds ASAP
I read the blog and it is super informative. Buying a perfect gift is no child’s play. Here, is the blog which lets you choose the perfect gift staying away from all the silly blunders while choosing a gift.
You can have an array of options for the perfect gift for the occasion.
https://www.giftaplace.com/