Do you need to buy a gardening gift for an organic gardening fanatic who seems to have everything? Here's a list of easy to find items that can easily be shipped or transported to the lucky gardener on your gift list.
Gift certificate to a favorite seed source
Many shy away from giving gift certificates as gifts. Please make an exception for the organic gardener. A gift certificate to a favorite mail-order source of organic seeds and growing supplies will allow them to savor hours of pleasurable catalog browsing and find a way to best make use of your gift.
A gift certificate can encourage frugal or timid gardeners to splurge on seeds for plants that they have been curious about for years but have been reluctant to try. Best of all, it is a gift that keeps on giving, because every time your gift's recipient gazes upon the plants that your gift produced, they will think kind thoughts about you.
Fancy digging fork
A digging fork is always appreciated. It's useful for removing weeds with big clumps of roots or for loosening the soil in garden beds, as in the double-digging method that is much in favor among some organic gardeners. It's also a must for harvesting potatoes or sweet potatoes.
To really make an impression, have a custom nameplate with the recipient's name (or a message of your choice) made and affix it to the fork's handle at a point that won't interfere with the user's grip.
Automated sprout machine
Eating delicious, fresh produce is the big payoff for most organic gardeners, but the produce harvesting season for most gardeners, unless they live somewhere very warm or have a greenhouse, lasts only a few months. Sprouts are a great way to get fresh, green veggies year round.
A sprout machine is an automated sprout growing system that is far more reliable and convenient than the traditional sprouts in a jar method. The sprout machine will take care of watering your sprouts for you by misting them every few hours, ensuring that your sprouts will grow quickly and will nearly always be gorgeous and healthy.
Floating row cover
This gem of a gardening supply tends to quickly become a gardener's prized possession. Floating row cover is a lightweight, re-useable, translucent polypropylene blanket that is used to protect plants from being devoured by insects, scalded by the sun or killed by frost. Using row cover can also help your plants establish more quickly, leading to earlier tomatoes and other summer crops, and it can extend your growing season further into the fall, as well.
It can resolve or reduce the intensity of so many organic gardening problems that, in my opinion, no gardener should be without it. Floating row cover is available in several different weights, or thicknesses. The thicker ones are more effective for frost protection but are too heavy to use as insect barriers during the summer months.
Wall O'Water
This is a gift for the gardener who is on a perpetual quest for growing the earliest tomatoes possible. They can best be described as clear, floppy plastic tubes, about a foot and a half high with a similar diameter that can be filled with water to create a miniature greenhouse for a single plant.
The idea is that once a Wall O'Water is set in place in a garden plot, the water-logged mini greenhouse will warm the soil and keep the single plant within it cozy and protected from the ravages of winter and early-spring winds and frosts. The manufacturer claims that Wall O'Water can protect tomato plants and other tender annuals in temperatures as low as 16 degrees F.
I have used Wall O'Waters with some degree of success. A couple of years ago, I bought a set of three of them, which has enabled me to set out a few of my tomato plants a couple of weeks earlier than their cohorts for the past two seasons. The Wall O'Water-grown plants always fruit about a week earlier than their unprotected, late-planted brethren.
If you follow these suggestions, you will likely become a favorite among the gardeners on your gift list, and they may reciprocate by keeping your produce drawer well-stocked this summer.
 | Plants grow in nature without chemicals, so why not let them do the same in your garden? For most garden problems, a natural solution exists. |
 | Organic vegetable gardening give homeowners tasty, nutritious and pesticide-free food. |
 | Commercial potting mixes have a lot going for them: they're convenient, widely available and usually provide a good medium for plants to grow in. What they often aren't is organic. |
All too often, eggplant gets a bum rap. People complain that it's hard to grow, hard to cook bitter tasting and not diet friendly. Not surprisingly, it's not included, or even welcome, in many an organic garden. Are these accusations against eggplant true, or do the gardeners of America owe eggplant a collective apology? |
One of the most important things you can pass along to kids is the love and importance of organic gardening. Organic gardens are free of chemicals and much better for the environment. Organic gardening is a state of mind. |
