Useful Gardener Gift Ideas

There are lots of gardening tools out there. When looking for a gardening gift, it's important to give something that will be useful to the gardener.

These are all gardening products that I either own and use in my garden or have on my gift wish list. So I know they're gift ideas worth recommending.

I enjoy using things that work, so you won't find any decorative garden ornaments here. Only useful tools that will help your favorite gardener grow a great vegetable garden!

Garden Image by Mac33

A homemade gardener gift...

What's a salad table? It's a simple wooden frame with a shallow area (usually 3-4 inches deep) for planting lettuce, herbs and other leafy greens. It can be built with legs, like a table, or as a box. To grow the salad greens close to the kitchen, it can be placed on a deck or patio and easily moved when needed to catch the sun.

The University of Maryland Extension office has easy to follow plans for building a salad table or box along with info and videos on how to use it.

Since you can build the table to any height, this would be a great gift for someone who enjoys gardening but is confined to a wheelchair or has trouble bending down to tend a garden.

Last spring I built a salad box for my kids to grow their own salad greens on our deck. It was a big hit and they're looking forward to using it again this season.

Don't tell the kids, but it's also a good way to keep them interested in eating salad! It's much easier to get them to eat things if they grew it or helped make it.

That's our salad box in the picture. It had 2 types of lettuce, arugula, spinach and a couple rogue pumpkin seedlings in there from the compost.

I bought this book after a master gardener at my county's cooperative extension office highly recommended it. It's been a valuable resource to me ever since. I use it every season and even wrote a review of it.

Full of color photos and time tested tips, it makes a good gift for a new or experienced gardener.

Healthy soil is the key to healthy plants and a plentiful harvest. A soil test kit helps gardeners figure out what's going on with their soil.

Once you know the soil's pH and nutrient levels, you can take action if needed. Usually this means adding the appropriate fertilizers or other soil amendments to get the levels where your plants need them to be.

Some vegetable plants are very sensitive to soil temperature when they're planted. A soil thermometer helps the gardener know when the ground has reached the proper temperature and it's time to plant.

A water timer allows you to water your garden automatically. Set the frequency (every day, 2 days, etc), start time and the duration that you want the water flowing, then forget about it.

I usually set mine to water for 30 minutes every other day around dawn. It has a manual override to open or close the valve when you want to.

It's really useful when you're out of town during the growing season, your garden still gets watered like clockwork.

A soaker hose gets water directly to the soil where it can be more efficiently used by plants. It has tiny holes that allow the water to weep out along the full length of the hose.

Pair it with the water timer above to fully automate watering the garden.

Homemade compost provides free and nourishing organic matter to a garden's soil. Every gardener should have at least one compost bin to turn their yard waste and food scraps into compost.

It's a great way to turn your kitchen scraps and yard clippings into something useful. A gift that keeps on giving.

Everyone has a favorite. Which of these would you most like to get?

Garden copyright and used by permission of Mac33.

Salad Box copyright and used by permission of Mac33.

What are your suggestions for a great gardening gift? What do you think of the items in this list? Please leave a comment below.