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Gifts for Gardeners in Winter

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Gardeners will be spending less time in their gardens over the next couple of months. Colder weather means slower-growing weeds and slower-growing crops, so there is less work to do. For many of us, though, our thinking-about-gardens is still on full-speed.

Indoor projects can help use up some of that gardening-energy. If your gardener could use a wintertime project, here are some garden-related gift ideas to consider:

Stepping Stone Kit: I went to a big garden expo in August, and one booth showed kits for garden stepping stones. The projects were super-cute! This is a fun joint project for an adult plus child.

Flower Press and Idea Book: There aren’t many flowers in our gardens now to place in a plant press, but crafty gardeners who love flowers can get ready for flower-season (most of the year, here in the South) by reading an inspirational book (below). Information about the flower press — shown at left — on Amazon.com indicates that it is for kids, but my flower press, that I use as an adult, looks similar (different picture on the front).

My copy of Penny Black’s Book of Cards and Collages , along with my own flower press, has helped me make many beautiful cards over the years, mostly in the slower, wintertime season. This book, or a different one of your choosing, might inspire your favorite gardener, too.

Looking for a more practical gift? Try a very nice food dehydrator, to preserve your gardener’s harvest, paired with a book of recipes for the resulting dehydrated foods, so the preserved harvest is used to its fullest.

My Excaliber dehydrator, which I love, is the smaller, 5-tray version, but I should have bought the 9-tray version (shown to the right of this text).

The Ultimate Healthy Dehydrator Cookbook isn’t a primer on how to dehydrate your garden produce — a booklet with those instructions comes with the Excaliber dehydrator. Instead, this book explains how to use those dehydrated foods in every-day recipes.

Something that might be less practical, but that I thought was very funny and yet also useful when I saw it at that big garden expo, is a set of Outdoor Yard Drinkholder stakes. Setting your cup/thermos in one of these, near where you are working in the garden, would keep it high enough off the ground that dirt and debris is less likely to fly into your beverage.

The stakes would also reduce the risk of spills (how many times have I accidentally knocked over my water/tea/coffee while weeding?). I can imagine placing these strategically around the yard in the morning, so there will always be one near where I am working.

The linked set is multicolored, but the stakes also come in what may be considered a more tasteful color combo of white and black.

Fall Garden Planning book explains how to choose crops, create a schedule, and prepare the garden for fall planting.

Of course, there is also my very own book about planning the fall vegetable garden, Fall Garden Planning, which would be an Excellent gift for any gardener in the Southeastern U.S. (but my view is probably biased…).

If none of these ideas seems right for your gardener, you might check out the gift idea lists of some of my gardening friends:

Gifts for Gardeners – Spring and Summer

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As spring and summer roll onward, you may come across a good excuse to provide one or more gifts for gardeners (or for just one, special gardener). Deciding what a gardener might need, though, can be difficult. Is there a particular tool or supply that your gardener has mentioned wanting? If so, go for that first.

If, however, your gardener has not offered any suggestions when you’ve asked, here are some thoughts, based on the coming portion of the gardening year.

A Gift for All Seasons

An excellent thermos-cup.  Very soon, it will be hot outside. All gardeners will need to work at staying hydrated while they are out in the garden. If your gardener does not yet have an excellent thermos-cup, one that is easy to drink from and that keeps a beverage nicely cold, then you might look into the 18 ounce Travel Kuppe for campers. It fits all those requirements.

Gifts for Gardeners – for Special Parts of the Season

A widger! Will your gardener be starting more plants from seeds later in the summer, to fill in gaps as some crops finish in July? Using a wooden flat filled with seed starting medium, to start seedlings indoors, is a method that reduces the use of plastic. Gardeners use a widger, like the one in this little kit  to lift seedlings from the flat when it is time to move them into larger containers for continued growth.

Another source of this tool is Johnny’s Selected Seeds , which offers a stainless steel widger separately, rather than as part of a kit.

Of course, an old table-knife, from a thrift store, also is an acceptable widger substitute, but it isn’t as “cool” as having and using the exact, right tool.

Great gifts for gardeners that you can make include this wooden flat for starting seeds.
Great gifts for gardeners that you can make include a wooden flat, like the one in this picture, for starting seeds. PHOTO/Amygwh for Small Garden News

Wooden flat for seed starting. Your favorite gardener may be trying to reduce the use of plastic in his or her gardening. A  wooden seed-starting flat that you can build can contribute to that effort.  A good tutorial is on this website.

Seed envelopes. Gardeners who like to save seeds from the garden, for herbs, flowers, or veggies, will appreciate having envelopes that are designed for that specific purpose.  Self-sealing seed envelopes from Seed Needs are large enough to hold large seeds. They are also  secure enough that little seeds won’t slip out.

Book. Of course, the Fall Garden Planning guide to fall gardening in the Southeastern U.S. also is an option. If your gardener is a beginner or new to the South, the book will be helpful.

Need more? If these “gifts for gardeners”  don’t seem right for your gardener, you might check the gift suggestions of some gardening friends:

From Kathy at Washington Gardener: Gifts for Gardeners – Gardening Gift Ideas

From Jacqueline at Southwest Gardening: May Day Celebrations and Gifts

From Abra Lee in an article for Northside Woman: Mother’s Day Gifts for the Gardener in Your Life

Seeds for the Whole Gardening Year

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As we all plan our upcoming year’s gardens,  remembering any problems from last year that could be fixed by growing a different variety of seeds can be helpful.

Example 1: Did you plant a ‘Matt’s Wild Cherry’ tomato that grew so vigorously that it spilled across ten feet of garden space AFTER erupting out the top of a 6-foot tall tomato cage? If your garden is too small to comfortably accommodate that growth, you might want to select a variety this year that stays a little more in-bounds. Read the height/length information carefully. The word “vigorous”, when used to describe a plant’s growth, can be a sign that the plant could outgrow a small garden.

Example 2: Did your basil plants suffer from basil downy mildew in last year’s wet spring? According to a 2010 article in HortScience (HortScience September 2010 vol. 45 no. 9 1416-1419), this disease was first identified in Florida in 2007 and has since spread across much of the US, and all sweet basils can be affected to some degree.

A Cornell University webpage, updated in 2017, lists basil types that are less likely to be affected by the disease: “…red types (including ‘Red Leaf’ and ‘Red Rubin’), Thai basil (‘Queenette’), lemon basil (‘Lemon’, ‘Lemon Mrs. Burns’, ‘Sweet Dani Lemon Basil’), lime basil (‘Lime’), and spice types (‘Spice’, ‘Blue Spice’, ‘Blue Spice Fil’, ‘Cinnamon’)”.

If downy mildew spoiled your pesto-dreams last year, you might try switching to a resistant variety, even though the flavor will be a bit different.

Basil seedlings in little green pots
Tray of sweet basil seedlings  PHOTO/Amygwh

My own garden has not yet been affected by basil downy mildew (that also can affect coleus and salvia), but I have seen it in other gardens nearby. I know it is in the area, so I like to be prepared. At least one of the basils that I grow this year will be from the list of resistant varieties!

When I have finalized the list of what I hope to grow this year, I will include the entire year, right through fall.

Some garden centers remove their seed-display racks before mid-summer, and catalog sources can have limited supplies of popular seed varieties. Any gardener who waits until summer to buy seeds for the fall garden could be out of luck.

More garden centers do keep their seed racks up longer than when I first started gardening, but I know that when I buy seeds sooner, like now, I can store the seed packets in sealed containers in the fridge soon after they arrive on my front porch.

Some seeds, when stored cool and dry, can be good for growing for several years. This is a real advantage to buying, or ordering, seeds for the whole year in late winter or early spring.

Gifts for Gardeners

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Winter can be hard on gardeners. There is less work to keep them occupied outside, and, if there are few houseplants, no good way to expend their gardening energies indoors, either.

If your gardener is looking forward to that pruning time of year (coming soon!), a comfortable yet sturdy pair of garden-work gloves (I have a pair from GardenWorks that fit well), would be a great gift, along with — if your gardener doesn’t already have one — a small folding, pruning saw, like this one from Corona, that fits in nearly any tool bag/box/bucket and is easy to use.

For veggie-gardeners suffering from the wintertime blahs, a gift option that can keep them growing through the winter is everything-needed-to-grow-sprouts. This is easier to get together than you might think.

A set that you can assemble yourself could include inexpensive Econo-Sprout Toppers (special “sprouting” lids that fit on Mason jars — I use a set of these at home), a collection of Assorted Organic Sprouting Seeds Mixes, and a book that includes instructions and recipes, like The Complete Guide to Growing and Using Sprouts.

Insect house in use at Zilker Botanical Garden in Austin, TX.
Insect House at Zilker Botanical Garden in Austin, TX.

 

For gardeners looking for more ways to support our native pollinators, a mason bee house, like this one from Welliver, for which replacement tubes are available as refills for next year, is a good choice. If your gardener might prefer something that could provide refuge for a wider range of insects, the Insect Palace Bee and Bug Home , which looks similar to an insect house I saw in Austin, TX, is another way to go.

For organic gardeners who love to read seed catalogs, a copy of  Baker Creek’s 2018 Whole Seed Catalog would also be an excellent, and very affordable, choice. Last year’s Whole Seed Catalog not only listed and described hundreds of garden seeds/plants, it also included great articles about seeds and gardening.

If your gardener is interested in mushroom foraging or growing, check the Gifts for Gardeners (and Budding Foragers) post at Atlanta Veggies. If none of these ideas seems right for your gardener, check out the gift lists on the sites of some of my gardening friends (all of whom have more elegant-looking sites than mine):

Marianne, at The Small Town Gardener

Kathy’s Gifts for Garden Cats at Cats in Gardens

The Washington Gardener’s Holiday Gifts for Gardeners

Top 10 Books for Gardeners, also from the Washington Gardener

Hand Tools for Your Garden

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Using the right hand tools can make a big difference in how tired or sore you become after a day of gardening. The wrong tool creates extra work and strain!

If you have any wrist or elbow problems, in particular, there are tools available that allow you to do the job at hand with less twisting and pressure on weak joints.

I have made a little video to explain:

The double-headed “eye danger” tool may not be available anymore. I certainly couldn’t find one when I searched online. However, the Asian weeding tool and the Cobrahead weeder are easy to find and a joy to use.