Make an Organic Garden Gift Basket

If it’s gift-giving time for a special organic gardener in your life, you may be scratching your head over the recipient’s wish list. How does one present a bag of compost starter? Surely, these dehydrated disks called peat pots aren’t what the gardener really wanted. These gift requests may seem as meek as the lowly worm that turns the gardener’s soil. Although organic gardeners get excited about gifts others may perceive as being humble, a solution that enhances the anticipation for the gift-giver is creating a gift basket.

A gift basket presents multiple small gifts in a visually alluring manner that allows the gift-giver to generate as much excitement over the presentation as the contents. You can narrow the theme of the gardening gift basket to fill any niche, and you can create a dramatic gift basket within any budget.

Choose the Basket

The receptacle for an organic gardening gift basket doesn’t have to be a conventional woven basket. Any gardening-oriented object that holds the intended gifts is suitable. An exciting deluxe gift basket for an organic gardener can be a wagon or a wheelbarrow. A simple gift basket for mother’s day can be a garden pot of any size. You can give a flexible garden trug fashioned out of rugged polyethylene that the gardener uses later for any job from hauling soil or logs to gathering the vegetable harvest.

Add Material for Backfill

Many gift baskets use straw or shredded paper to create a nest for the gift items. Match the backfill contents with the style of the basket or container. If your basket is a formal-looking garden urn, fill it with multi-hued confetti. You can use straw or natural raffia in a wicker basket.

If you have time and you possess a green thumb, consider growing live filler for your gift basket. Line the basket or container with a plastic garbage bag. Fill the container with lightweight potting soil. Sprinkle the soil generously with ryegrass seed, which germinates richly colored chartreuse sprouts within 2 weeks when you keep it consistently moist. Tuck gift items into the grass. This looks especially handsome as an Easter gift basket.

Select Gift Items

Gardening gifts that seem meager or strange when presented singly make wonderful gift basket fillers. You can inspire the organic vegetable gardener with several packets of seeds, a rolled up propagation heat mat, and a bag of organic seed starting mix. If the gift-giving occasion falls in the midst of winter, give a nursery gift certificate, garden gloves, garden magazines, and a selection of tea and cocoa for nights of winter sipping and planning. Good compost sustains all organic gardens, so a composting gift basket can feature a compost thermometer, compost accelerator, a compost aerating tool, and a composting guide, all tucked into a kitchen scrap crock.

Wrap the Gift Basket Up

If your gift basket is large or oddly shaped, you don’t need to cover it with an over wrap. You can tie a large bow to the basket handle as a final flourish. Traditional gift baskets sometimes feature cellophane wrap tied with a bow. In keeping with the organic gardening spirit of all things natural and of the earth, consider an alternative wrap. You could wrap the basket with a piece of burlap cloth, and tie it with plant ties. You could also wrap the basket with a wispy piece of floating row cover, indicative of the box of row covers and other pest repellants inside the basket.

For more gift ideas, read Gifts for Organic Gardeners: Tools and Supplies to Promote Natural Gardening.