Growing an herb or vegetable garden is without a doubt one of the most enjoyable, as well as productive, hobbies that you can engage in. With a little imagination, you can make your garden beautiful as well as productive, but just like any piece of real estate, with a garden it’s all about location. Choosing the right location for your garden is the most important part of your planning because no matter how much you tend and care for your plants, if they are planted in the wrong area, they aren’t going to grow properly. There are several important things to consider before you break ground for your garden.

Give Your Plants Plenty Of Sun

Sunlight is one of the essential gifts for the garden in that it at the root of promoting a healthy green space. Nearly every fruit and vegetable, as well as most herbs, will require full sun for a minimum of 6 hours each day in order to produce. This doesn’t necessarily have to be all at once. If your garden gets 3 hours of full sun in the morning, and another 3 hours in the evening, they will grow very nicely.

Knowing where the sunny areas of your property are sounds simple, but you must remember that the path of the sun will change during the course of the growing season.  An area that is full sun in the early spring may be shaded by a fence or another structure later in the season. An easy way to find out where your garden will get maximum exposure to the sun is to mark the sun’s progress for a day. By doing this you can gain some idea as to what areas receive the most sun. If you are tracking the progress of the sun in the early spring before the trees have begun to leaf out, make sure that you allow for the amount of shade that will be produced by the canopies of nearby trees. Many beginning gardeners have spent numerous hours preparing their garden only to find it fully shaded after the leaves come out. If you orient your garden north to south, there will be less chance of your plants shading each other.

Keep Your Garden Level

If you are using raised beds, this is less important because you will level the garden as you make it. However, for those planting directly in the ground, you won’t want any low spots where water can gather after a heavy rain. Planting on a slight slope can sometimes work well, especially if it faces the south, but a steep incline can lead to problems with erosion. To make sure that your garden is not going to turn into a bog when it rains you simply have to watch after a rainfall to determine where the low spots are. If you need to place your garden in this area because of space limitations, some soil and a little work will be necessary to ready it for planting. Rototillers and a large landscape rakes are perfect gardening gift idea for her for leveling soil and make the perfect gardening gifts for the planters on your list.

Having a garden is a great way to provide your family with fresh produce and avoid all the chemicals and pesticides that are common with commercially grown vegetables. One last thing to remember is to keep your garden out of high traffic areas. If your space is limited and you think there may be a problem with people taking a shortcut through your tomatoes, an inexpensive garden fence may be a very wise investment. While this article covers the bases there are actually a number of books that go into detail about these concepts and these make good gifts for the women and other enthusiasts in your life.

Father’s Day is nearly here and with it comes the inevitable gift shouting chores. It seems so much easier to come up with gift ideas for mothers. For some reason, gift ideas for women are easier to brainstorm.

It’s not that we don’t love our fathers. Because of men’s natural tendency to mollify their emotions, purchasing a gift for your dad can be a little on the tricky side--far more so than other gift ideas. Women aren't just inherently easier to buy for, it's probably that we stress a little more about making sure that Dad gets something he really likes.

Growing Up Means Being a Little More Considerate When we Buy Gifts.

As children we can quite often get away with a gift that Pop’s really doesn’t like much. Dad’s still going to be grateful isn’t he? As an adult you probably want to put a little more thought into what you give your father for Father’s Day.

What's on Your Father's Day Gift List?

One way to find the perfect gift is to consider what your father enjoys as a hobby.

Gardening is becoming more popular for a great many men. In years past gardening was seen as the province of ladies and older men, but more and more that is no longer the case. Men of all ages are maintaining gardens as a way to get a little exercise and provide healthier foods for their family. The male gardener today ranges in age from 20-80 and even older. Men enjoy growing a lot of different vegetables and fruits, as well as—in the case of some men, even hard-to-grow flowers such as orchids.

Having a gardener in the family makes it a little easier to find just the right Father’s Day gardening gifts. Green thumb gifts, gardening gifts for Father’s Day are going to be a hit for the man who loves the outdoor world and growing his own produce.

Father's Day Gift Ideas for the Gardener

Father's Day gift ideas that incorporate his love of gardening into the gift make it easier to come up with a gift that you know he's going to love. Just a few Father's Day gift ideas include:

An indoor salad greens kit or an indoor hydroponics kit is also a wonderful Father's Day gift idea. Hydroponics is less labor intensive in most cases than actual in-ground gardening but allows for growing a wide range of different items. The indoor salad greens kit offers the same advantages while cutting down on the world involved.

Of course, if your father is, like many men, someone who enjoys working a larger outdoor garden, there are several gifts which could be given to accommodate his love of gardening too.

For the guy who loves gardening and moves a great deal around particularly in container gardening scenarios, a great christmas gift ideas for her might be a garden cart. These make it easier to move weighty things from one area to another without getting into so much manual labor.

A set of outdoor containers which are large enough to hold the different vegetables that he might like to plant, as well as seeds or better still, plants which are partly grown to place in the pots is also a wonderful gardening gift.

A weedier to help to lower the labor involved in removing the weeds from an in-ground garden might also be a helpful garden tool for the avid gardener and would be a good Father's day gift idea.

What's the Bottom Line?

Essentially, anything that would be helpful in the garden could be a good idea for a Father's Day gift for the man who enjoys getting his hands dirty in the garden. For those who are a little older, make gardening easier with some gardening ideas or kits that allow for low labor and low maintenance gardening. These are Father's Day gift ideas that any dad can appreciate.

Having your own garden isn't just something that country folk are doing in order to fortify their cupboards and reduce budgets. More and more we're seeing tools for gardening not just in the country, but also outside high-end urban homes.

These days, it's almost a necessity. Not only that, but maintaining your own garden is considered the "trendy" thing to do. Its anopportunityto work togetherwith your family, learn about how to survive without the grocery store, and get a bit of exercise at the same time. According to the Garden Writer's Association in a recent report, more than 38 percent of all households now have a garden.

All those things aside, keeping a garden just makes good sense. It makes good sense for all of the reasons previously stated, but more, because having your own garden allows you to introduce healthy, natural foods at meal time.

What are the Benefits of Home Grown Vegetables?

First and most importantly, vegetables grown at home, in your yard or garden are going to be far safer than those mass-produced at industrial facilities.

How many times in the recent past have we heard of a produce recall for some type of contamination?

In just the last year alone we've seen government recalls of vegetables from once trusted companies such as Dole, Tropical Valley and Prime Foods for contaminants including salmonella, listeria, and even for undeclared allergens. In many cases the issues came from contaminated gardening tools and implements, which came in contact with foods. The same may hold true of gardening equipment that is used in multiple areas or gardens. Contaminants as well as unsanitary harvesting techniques may cause an allergic reaction. These contaminants can be serious and in some cases deadly, yet they are becoming more common.

Growing Your Own Food is Safer

You have the advantage of knowing precisely what kind of fertilizer has been used on your produce as well as the nature of the soil in which it was grown. In addition, the handling of your produce and the way in which it was harvested is within your control so you can to ensure that it is safely treated and well cleaned.

Growing Your Own Food is Healthier

In most cases the back yard gardener is a gardener who does not use high levels of chemical pesticides and inorganic fertilizers. This means that the foods you grow are not only safer to eat they are quite likely more nourishing. While there is some debate, in several instances, organically grown vegetables have proven to have higher levels of some nutrients.

1.Vegetables are a good source of vitamins, enzymes and phytonutrients that your body needs. Vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts can help to combat and may even lower your risk of some types of cancer.

2. Likewise carrots and other yellow and orange vegetables have been found to reduce the incidence of cancer even in those who smoke.

3 Gardening can provide healthy nutrition, safer produce and build families as you work together toward a common goal.

With all of these reasons for growing your own food, doesn't a garden sound like a great place to get your exercise this summer? With the proper tools and a good bit of determination, you will be eating better in no time.