Tick tock… The time is near. The end of our 10th season of Garden Time is just a week away. You can tell when we start running those holiday ‘gifts for the gardener’ stories. This week we have a couple of those including a visit to Garland Nursery, Bauman’s Farm and Garden and Timber Press. We also pay a visit to Stumptown Kilts. What about a kilt for the gardener in your family? We are just a couple of people away from filling up our trip to Ireland. If that fills up we will be wearing kilts in Ireland! Check out the story in the show this week.

People are also wondering how they can stay in touch with us over the winter when we are gone. You can check out our website at www.GardenTime.tv, or you can like us on Facebook, or you can check us out on Twitter. Of course we also have the Garden Time magazine, which you can get every month, FREE, in your e-mail.

Also this week, we have a special offer from our friends at Bauman’s. They are offering a free gerbera daisy to Garden Time viewers when you order a pie from them. Find out the details below!

This week we featured...

Winter Power Tool Care

It is the time of year that we are putting away our power tools for the season and to keep them in the best condition for the next year, give them a tune-up for the winter. Wayne from Stihl tools met with Judy at his house to talk about some basic care for your mower, blower, chain saw and other equipment to prepare them for the cold months ahead! The benefit of doing it now keeps your tools in the best condition so you have less maintenance in the future. A couple of pointers… get the fuel out of your machine. He recommends that you drain the fuel out and then use the MotoMix fuel from Stihl in your machine. Run the machine until the mix is gone and the machine should be good to store for the winter. Without doing this the old gas becomes weak gas and can foul your engine. Check air filters and spark plugs. Sharpen blades/chains and clean all surfaces. If you are looking for a replacement part, bring the old part with you to the local Stihl dealer. If it sounds like too much to tackle, you can always take it to a qualified local dealer. You can find a list of dealers on the Stihl website. You can also clean all your protective equipment as well. Clean those safety glasses and wash those heavy duty chaps too!

Garland Holidays

The holidays are right around the corner and that means you will have 2 major chores in front of you, decorating and gift giving. One place where you can do both is this weekend at Garland Nursery (1-800-296-6601) in Corvallis. Garland is having their holiday open house and they have a ton planned for people who drop by. Judy met with Erica and Brenda to talk about gifts. Erica talked about terrariums. These are still very popular and you can find all the supplies at Garland. These little enclosed gardens are great when you are trapped inside for the winter. Your terrarium can include just about anything you want, it just has to fit inside one of their cute little planter. Speaking of planters, they have some incredible melted glass containers that are one-of-a-kind. Then we talked with Brenda about succulents. These are not just your normal ‘hens and chicks’, there are lots of different types and varieties. You can create something as small as a terrarium, or something much larger in a decorative container. Brenda even showed us a tray of different succulents that could be used as place settings for name cards at a fancy dinner! Now is also the time to start turning those outdoor planters into something special for the holidays. We saw a bunch of these on display around the nursery.

If you are stumped on your holiday decorating, or you need some ideas for holiday gifts, stop by Garland this weekend for their open house. Judy and William will be giving 2 seminars on Saturday the 21st. They will be talking about terrariums, succulents and outdoor containers. Stop by and say hi!

Timber Press Gift Books

Finding the right gift can be tough, but nearly everyone loves a good book. We stopped by Timber Press and found a bunch of wonderful titles for the gardener and non-gardener in your family. Tom Fischer from Timber actually found some books that would appeal to both, the adult and child, in each family. The first title was Gardening in Miniature by Janit Calvo. This is a wonderful book about creating tiny landscapes. This is not just a picture book, it tells you how to build these great little gardens, including how to pick plants, select accessories and care for the garden once you are finished. The second book was a wonderful book called ‘The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh’ by Kathryn Aalto. This book takes you behind the scenes of the book. It takes you to the forest that was the inspiration for the 100 acre wood. It covers the areas that were the inspiration for A.A. Milne’s characters and locations. It is amazing that you can see the actual ‘Pooh sticks’ bridge and the honey tree. It is a great book to read after you have read all the old Pooh books so you can tie everything back together. Another book like that one is ‘Beatrix Potter’s Garden Life’ by Marta McDowell. This one traces the life of Beatrix as she grows up and shows how her gardening and characters in her life made it into her books. She eventually settled in the Lakes District in England where she found even more inspiration for future books. She fell in love with this land and patterned some of her gardens after her books. She also set aside acres of land to be preserved in that area. It is a great story. Finally we turned to coloring. The last book, Color the Natural World, by Zoe Keller is a coloring book that is great for kids and adults. These detailed coloring sheets feature plants and animals in their natural habitat. Coloring the pictures can be fun, but then you can look at the back of the book for more information and details on the featured plants and animals. It is a great book for those cold and rainy Northwest days! If you are interested in these books you can check with your local book seller, or you can go to the Timber Press website.

Bauman Thanksgiving

Everyone knows Bauman’s Farm and Garden (503-792-3524) for their great harvest festival but did you know they are one of the best places to go if you are looking to get ready for Thanksgiving? We met with Brian Bauman in the middle of the store to talk about Thanksgiving. He told us that they are fully stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables for the big meal, even better they have the bakery up to full speed getting all those tasty baked goods ready too. He had a couple of pies he brought out for us to try and then he told us about the special offer for out Garden Time viewers. If you order a pie by this weekend you can get a free gerbera daisy when you pick it up before Thanksgiving! That’s right. Order a pie and you get a plant! Remember to mention Garden Time! We also talked about decorating. Brian used some of the old pumpkins and gourds from their festival as containers for the Thanksgiving table. He just hollowed them out and rinsed the inside with a mild bleach solution. This keeps the bacteria down and keeps the pumpkin from rotting too soon. Then he placed a potted plant in the center. He also did the same thing for sedums, except he just planted the whole plant in the container. Eventually these ‘planters’ will rot, but before they do they make great centerpieces!

Now if you are looking to share the tastes of the past summer with friends and family Bauman’s also offers a do it yourself gift bar. Just pick out your favorite jam, jelly, or other home grown product from the huge selection at the farm and they will package it up and send it to your loved ones. Nothing like a tasty gift that you know they will enjoy and won’t be returned to the store! So stop by Bauman’s this weekend and order your pie (get your plant) and then order some tasty treats as gifts for everyone on your list!

Stumptown Kilts

As most of you know, we are hosting a garden tour to Ireland in June of 2016. Recently we had a webinar to promote the trip and showcase the great gardens we are going to visit. At the end of the webinar I (producer Jeff) issued a challenge. If we were to sell out the trip the Garden Time crew would wear kilts! Well, we are just 4 people away from that becoming a reality! Still, after the challenge I started thinking…. Where does one get kilts locally? Well the first people I thought of were our friends at 67 Music. 67 Music promotes Celtic music here in the Northwest and all over the world! If you are looking for a site that is devoted to Celtic Music, this is the place to go. Steve and skOt who run this great promotion company put us in touch with Stumptown Kilts (503-839-7604)! Todd and Jonny are wonderful local business men and they have taken an old design of the traditional army kilt and made it one of the most sought after kilts in the world. Stumptown kilts are all made locally and so we stopped by to see what they had. They were more than happy to get us all ‘kilted’ up, but not before we had a fashion show. It is amazing the selection they have that blew us away! These kilts are incredibly comfortable and they are functional too. There are hidden pockets and even pouches that you can add! Plus they can instruct you on the finer points of wearing a kilt too. (What do you wear under a kilt?? They can tell you the options!)

Now after the fashion show, we teased you… you would have to look at their website to find out what we picked. You can do that by going here. If you would like to see what we all look like when we are wearing them, you need to sign up to join us in Ireland! The price increases in mid-December and there are only 4 spots left, so don’t wait too long.