Hard to believe that a month from this weekend is Christmas.

Perhaps it was the 80-degree temperatures at the end of October that threw me off.

Or maybe it was that a number of trees in the Bangor area still had leaves in November.

Or it might be because I am still picking cabbages from the vegetable patch.

As I write, Thanksgiving looms, so in my effort to get in the holiday mood, let’s think shopping, with a few ideas for the gardener on your list. All are practical, some are inexpensive, but each will show that dirt-digging loved one you care.

Because nothing says love like a bottle of liquefied worm castings. TerraCycle Plant Food is about as Earth-friendly as gardening gets. First, a gazillion worms are fed “premium organic waste,” according to the bottle label. And then the worms do what worms do: They “create worm poop.” That is turned into liquid fertilizer and packaged in a reused soda bottle, which the company collects by running community and school fundraisers.

I found my 20-ounce bottle – with its little bottle-cap ring still around its neck – last weekend at Tillson True Value in Dexter where I was shopping for LED Christmas lights – also an excellent way to be kind to the world and your electric bill. The all-purpose fertilizer was $6.99 and comes with a spray nozzle.

At www.terracycle.net, you can find out everything you want to know about TerraCycle products (from tomato to rose to tropical plant food) and where you can buy them (Home Depot, Target and Wal-Mart are the usual big-box names). You also can learn about their latest fundraiser-recycling efforts, which have expanded to include yogurt containers and those prolific juice pouches.

If you’re looking for something small to stuff into a stocking, consider the very practical Sharpie Mini permanent marker with a lanyard. I found one this past spring in the Vesey’s catalog and bought it immediately. I was thankful I did whenever I had to write on plant labels.

In past years, I’ve kept a marker in my gardening apron, which means I’ve had to dig through whatever else is in the pocket – if I can remember which pocket. One year, there was a cap mishap and the permanent ink was flowing freely.

This year, the marker dangled from around my neck. And the lanyard was a handy place to attach things, such as the clothespins I use on the row cover cloth. At one point, I think it looked a bit like a shark-tooth necklace draped around my neck.

Get the mini from Vesey’s for just $2.95 for your gardening warrior. Or Google it, and you’ll find it comes in at a bit less elsewhere. But here’s a hint: Vesey’s also has gift certificates that gardeners love.

Another magnificent gift is gloves, but not just any. Think Mud Glove, the best gloves I have ever used. I bought my first pair a few years back at Everlasting Farm in Bangor and they are still going strong, keeping my hands dry, and usually warm, when I handle damp or wet stuff: soil, rotting tomatoes, waterlogged anything. From hand-scraping weeds from between footpath stones in spring to pulling dead plants in autumn, these gloves have kept my hands well-protected. Only now, after scads of use, do the rubber-coated fingers get damp and that is if there is prolonged contact with a lot of water.

The Mud Glove comes from Little’s Good Gloves of Sedona, Ariz., a family-owned business with more than 100 years of glove-making experience. I visited the Web site at www.mudglove.com and found my original Mud Glove in a number of brilliant colors, but I also discovered a most delightful opportunity: other gloves.

Yes, Mud Glove has spawned the Ultra Mud Glove (geared for spring and fall’s cooler, wetter weather), the Mud Glove-EZE (designed with less rubber for warmer weather), the Cool Mud (ultra lightweight for hot weather) and the Potter’s Glove (designed so you can feel what you are picking up). But that’s not all: There are other gardening accessories and even more gloves, including sizes for children.

The cost for the Mud Glove varieties range from $7-$10, with the original Mud Glove at $8 a pair on the Web site.

Not only does a gardener need gloves, but what would a gardener’s life be without tools? One of my musts – which means I usually carry one in my apron – is a bypass hand pruner. It is superior to an anvil type when cutting those woody stems or small branches. First, an anvil type can crush branches, leaving a less-than-smooth cut. But I also think that an anvil pruner makes the cut harder on your hands when you squeeze the handles together. A good bypass pruner is almost effortless.

I found a good pruner years ago that still works fine, but my dream bypass pruner is a Felco. Check out your local gardening center for Felcos, but if you can’t find it locally, then try the pruning equipment section of American Arborist Supplies at www.arborist.com, where the prices on Felcos range from the low 20s to the upper 50s depending on the model. You don’t need to be an arborist to shop here, although you may want to hide the credit cards if your gardener should happen upon the site.

If you’d like to send your gardener a sample of the fruits of another gardener’s labors, visit Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater. Who needs chocolate when one can be in the Potato of the Month Club, where you get to sample a number of varieties, including heirlooms? And if potatoes aren’t your style, there’s also a Bread Mix of the Month Club.

Wood Prairie offers everything from Aroostook-grown potatoes to grains to dry beans to seeds and supplies. I’ve grown their seed potatoes for the past several years and can attest to their superiority.

The Web site, www.woodprairie.com, is full of great gift ideas: a Maine potato barrel filled with potatoes (you pick the variety at $109.95), the Maine Saturday Night Special (everything for a baked bean dinner packed into a clam hod for $39.95) and the Maine Fisherman’s Breakfast (pancake mix, maple syrup and accessories packaged in a clam hod for $39.95). Or you could build your own special by perusing the site for everything from the whole grains to organic cheeses. My particular favorite is the Aroostook-grown whole-oat groats that make a hearty breakfast cereal on a cold winter morning (two pounds for $6.95).

The pinnacle of planning would be to order a sampler of the organic potatoes and pair it with a gift certificate to buy seed potatoes for next year’s vegetable plot.

Your gardener will dig it.

Janine Pineo’s e-mail address is jpineo@bangordailynews.net.