With the holiday season arriving soon its time to think about gift ideas for loved ones on your shopping list. Gardeners prefer things that add joy to gardening. These can include inspirational and practical items.

Garden hand tools and supplies are very welcome. Buy the best quality tools you can afford for they will last for years. On the other hand, cheap hand pruners will be in the dust bin by next Christmas.

Raised bed kits and elevated planters make wonderful gifts. This makes gardening so much easier on the back. There are a number of raised bed kits on the market. Do-it-yourself types can build their own as gifts. Be sure and fill the raised bed with high quality top soil.

Garden kits make really fun gifts any time of the year. Most kits will include a container of some sort, potting soil, and seeds. You can typically choose from a variety of different flowers, herbs, vegetables, bonsai, and trees. Some recommended garden kits include the Potting Shed brand of Garden-in-a-bag Kids! kits. The choices for youngsters include sunflowers, heirloom tomato, heirloom strawberry, and others.

Garden seeds are much appreciated gifts. Some brands, such as Renee’s, are available year-round at independent garden centers and online. Both individual packs of seeds as well as seed collections are ideal additions to a gardener’s gift basket. Renee’s offers a number of different collections. These include Easy to Grow Container Herb Garden, Easy to Grow Container Kitchen Garden and Easy to Grow Rainbow Kitchen Garden. For 2011 Renee’s introduced wonderful new Scatter Gardens Canisters with the choices including Carefree Annual Wildflowers and California Native Orange Poppies.

Plants will be well received as gifts. If you don’t know exactly what variety or species the gardener prefers, give a gift certificate instead. This allows the recipient to choose the plants in time for the new gardening season.

Calendars and almanacs make wonderful practical gifts for gardeners. These are items they can use every day throughout the year. When it comes to garden calendars I’m really a fan of the ones from Willow Creek Press, a leading publisher of fine calendars. They have a number of different gardening calendars from which you can choose.

So far as almanacs are concerned the Baer’s Agricultural Almanac and Gardener’s Guide is the best around. 2012 marks the 187th year for this American classic. Edited by Linda L. Weidman, this is published each year by John Baer’s Sons. In addition to individual copies, the five year subscription also makes a great gift idea. Baer’s almanac is such a treasure-trove of practical and informative information that gardeners can use all year long.

The 2012 edition features articles on a wide range of different subjects. It includes articles on seed saving, the Peoples Garden Project, herbs for cats, indoor bulb gardens, the Newport Flower Show, chamomile, the All-America Selection winners, dead heading, and butterfly gardening. There are also scrumptious recipes for fresh garden produce,

The 2012 Baer’s almanac has a number of helpful seed planting tables. These list the best dates for planting, the amount of seeds needed, etc. There are separate tables for each region of the country.

For each month this has delightful garden, plant, and historical lore on a number of different subjects. There are also garden poetry and literary quotes on gardening subjects.

Each month of the year has a table giving the phases of the moon, the times for sunrise, moon phases, and the signs of the zodiac. There are helpful tables for telling the weather and garden signs according to the moon and the zodiac. This also has a fishing calendar and various kinds of helpful reference tables.

For disclosure purposes I received a review copy of the Baer’s Almanac and seed samples from Renee’s.