groweatgift Urban gardening made easy

Picnics are one of the best things about summer. OK, so eating outdoors means fending off wasps, ants and other creepy crawlies. You might get grass or sand in your food. But the smell of the fresh air, maybe mingling with the whiff of a BBQ (who says a picnic can’t also include a barbecue? It gives you the best of both worlds.) makes food taste better, and people seem so much smilier when eating outdoors on a sunny day.

Any good picnic requires the perfect tablecloth, like the gorgeous cherry print gingham tablecloth above (£40, Dollydagger.com).

Then, of course, you need a picnic basket to carry your wares. This cute polka dot number is  insulated, and comes complete with four wine goblets, plates, cutlery, salt and pepper shakers, a corkscrew and a chopping board, which makes the £54.99 price tag better value.

If that’s a bit pricey, Cath Kidston has an adorable flat pack picnic set at a more reasonable (though single use) £15.

This four tier tiffin box (£23, John Lewis) is ideal to hold all your picnic salads and side dishes: coleslaw, potato salad, panzanella, tomato, onion and avocado salad, tortilla or whatever else you fancy (picnic recipes to follow as summer progresses).

Keep your hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold with this vintage-style Beano flask (£15.95, John Lewis)

And take a Rob Ryan enamel mug to share your hot beverage with friends (£8.95, nottheusual.co.uk).

Of course, no picnic would be complete without cocktails. This gorgeous cocktail kit (£42.89, hotcakegifts.co.uk) may be pricey but it includes a cocktail shaker, two martini glasses, leather coasters and stirrers, and adds a ridiculous level of sophistication to your picnic. Just don’t forget your ice.

Should you wish to add a little heat to your picnic, this cute BBQ bucket (£9.99, Amazon.co.uk) can be filled with coal and firelighters prior to setting off, and is easy to carry home once you’re done.

When it comes to pretty lighting, fire balloons (aka sky lanterns) may be tempting but they can be really dangerous to livestock as animals can get hurt by the wires, and the lanterns can cause fires in haystacks. Instead, opt for candle bags (currently on sale at Firebox.com, at £3.99)

No picnic is complete without music, and this Robert’s solar powered radio (£83.74, Nigel’s Eco Store) gives you classic style and entertainment in one, so you can dance the night away under the stars.

Growing lettuce is one of the easiest things ever (as the lettuce rockery proves). This hanging basket is ideal if you have limited windowbox space. Simply fill a hanging basket with moisture control compost, scatter with lettuce (rocket, sorrel or whatever)  seeds, hang it outside your back or front door, water every day (or as often as you can remember – this one is probably watered 4-6 times per week, and has survived a weekend without water) and you have easy access home grown salad.

At £19 apiece, these ceramic sandcastle planters are a tad pricey but they’re rather beautiful too. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from using sandcastle buckets instead, as long as you put drainage holes in them, should you be looking for a shabby chic alternative. However, if you’re after a gift for a seaside-dwelling gardener, these will add a touch of style to any abode.

OK, so there are more pressing matters in the world than finding an alternative summer drink to gin and tonic or the ubiquitous Pimms and lemonade. However, it’s a wonderful frippery to entertain your mind with, and Bloom gin has come up with a worthy competitor, albeit one with a rather odd name that brings to mind Star Trek and double entendres in equal measure.

By now, your basil should be thriving (assuming the slugs haven’t got to it – in which case use copper tape. You can also try spraying it with a few cloves in garlic crushed in water as a natural way to fend them off but garlic probably won’t enhance the flavour of this drink). As my tomatoes are still mostly at the flowering/green stage at the moment, this cocktail is a good way to use home grown  basil. Remember, the more frequently you cut herbs, the more they’ll grow, so this cocktail will help you get a basil glut with any luck.

Ingredients

40 ml Bloom Gin
40 ml apple juice
20 ml grapefruit juice
10 ml lime juice
15 ml sugar syrup
4-6 basil leaves

Method

Shake all the ingredients together then pour into highball glass full of crushed ice and garnish with lemon zest. (If you’d rather have the cocktail made for you, pop along to Bar 190 in London’s Gore Hotel. But that’s not going to help your garden grow, is it?)

Last year was all about upside-down planters and micro-herbs. This year, the string garden seems to be taking prime place in the urban gardening chic stakes. This great guide to creating a string garden from the fabulous Designsponge, created by Aura Scaringi will help you create your own urban garden of paradise. The downside? It may be worth avoiding cocktails if you have a string garden adorning your abode as otherwise you may be in for a muddy wake-up call.

No matter how small your growing space, these gorgeous egglings will fit, what with being the size of an egg (albeit a duck or possibly goose egg rather than a hen’s egg).

The concept is simple. Tap the egg gently to crack the top open and reveal the soil within. Place the eggling on its teracotta tray. Water it until the water starts to leak out the bottom and place in a sunny spot. There are extra seeds provided in case the ones inside the egg don’t germinate, although the sunflower eggling I tried (for free from Jonnyssister.co.uk - full disclosure and all that) germinated with no problems. Watch it grow, transplanting when it outgrows the egg, then scatter the broken eggling into the soil to act as fertiliser.

Available in sunflower, petunia, basil, lavender, spicy red pepper and wild strawberry varieties, and priced at £7.75, this is a cute gift that is affordable and stylish – not to mention a great way to get kids enthused about gardening.

If I only had a windowsill to play with I’d be tempted to buy two of each and create an eggling garden using an egg holder

Who says you need a huge amount of space to get growing?