Each month, the Alabama Healthy Kids, Healthy Future program hosts a virtual gardening training for child care providers across Alabama with Master Gardener Bionca Lindsey.
During the month of December, Bionca talked about how to create wonderful gifts and decorations from items that can be found in a garden. Ms. Bionca and the participants also did a craft together, creating beautiful bird feeders out of pinecones, peanut butter, and bird seeds!
Gifts and Decorations from the Garden
During this training, Bionca shared many different ways of creating arrangements and other crafts as gifts for loved ones during the holiday season. Here are a few of the gifts that Ms. B shared!
Create a fresh or dried floral arrangement.
Use fresh flowers to create a decorative arrangement, or dry the flowers found in your garden to create a beautiful holiday décor piece.
Use greenery, flowers, and other items to make table decorations.
Using greenery from the garden, such as ivy, eucalyptus, holly, and mistletoe can create beautiful decorations for a table or mantel. Other items to use for decor are herbs, flowers, branches, and pinecones.
Make ornaments to hang on a tree or mantel.
You can create ornaments using pinecones, dried okra, or any other festive garden items! All you need is an idea and a little bit of ribbon 🙂
Custom seed packets of your favorite plants are a meaningful and low-cost gift.
If you have a garden, you can harvest seeds from your produce and use them as gifts. Share the love of your favorite flowers, fruits, and vegetables by either harvesting seeds or buying seeds from the store. You can then create custom labels and festive packaging to turn it into a memorable gift.
We had so much fun with Master Gardener Bionca Lindsey during this session of our Virtual Gardening Series! Here’s what some of the child care providers in attendance had to say:
“[I] Loved it and learned a lot of new ideas”
“I like the connections that were made through gardening and other domains, such as motor development and language development”
“It is so interesting and informative.”
“I am so excited about these meetings. I can’t wait to learn about gardening.”
“Bionca does a great job.”
