Top 10 festive gift ideas

The festive season is upon us again and you may be racking your brain about what to give your loved ones, friends and colleagues as gifts.

We thought we’d help out. Here are some ideas for gifts that you can make at home, in schools or in early years centres.

If you’re short on time, we also have a list of ready-made gifts from the Foundation’s online shop. All proceeds from shop sales help the not-for-profit Foundation continue our work making pleasurable food education available to all Australian children. Shop before Thursday, 15 December to guarantee pre-Christmas delivery.

Five kitchen garden gifts you can make:

• Preserve produce from your garden. Who doesn’t love a jar of homemade chutney, jam or sauce? You can use up any excess produce that you have in your garden, or ask friends, family or neighbours for some of their bumper crops.
• Make seeds packets from home-grown seeds. When the plants in your veggie garden go to seed, don’t just pull them out and stick them in the compost. Dry out the seed heads, save the seeds and package them up. You can make, or buy, paper seed packets and decorate them with hand drawn examples of the plant. Kids love this task.
• Use fresh produce from your garden to make a posy or decorative wreath. Pick edible flowers, herbs, leafy greens or sprigs of fresh bay leaves and make up a posy. Vine cuttings from your garden can also be fashioned into a wreath and decorated with flowers, leaves and produce.
• Bottle up some worm wee from your worm farm. Friends and family – who don’t have their own worm farm – will appreciate this great fertiliser for their gardens. Kids can have lots of fun making hand-drawn labels featuring pictures of worms.
• Bake something festive, but it doesn’t have to be sweet. Try making some savoury muffins with silverbeet and a festive cherry tomato decoration. Or you could make bread in the shape of a Christmas tree, using pretty radish slices as the tree decorations. These perishable gifts can be handed out on the last day of term or taken to seasonal parties and gatherings.  

Five gift ideas from the Foundation’s online shop:

• The Kitchen Garden Educator’s Pack, $95. This pack is  a fabulous gift for educators, and for home cooks and gardeners. Offering more than $145 worth of value, it includes our new Getting Started guide, the Kitchen Garden Program Seasonal Planner, an adult-sized apron, a planting chart and a cooking DVD.
• The Kitchen Garden Kid’s Pack, $75. Includes more than $100 worth of cooking and gardening items that children will love – the Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids book, a child-sized apron, a planting chart and a cooking DVD.
• Stephanie Alexander cooking and gardening books. Our online shop has signed copies of all Stephanie’s books, including her latest releases The Cook’s Table and Kitchen Garden Companion: Growing.  
• Kitchen Garden Foundation aprons. Our aprons make a great present for home cooks, and they’re good to use in schools and centres. The aprons come in two sizes –adult ($35) and child ($20).
• What’s old is new again. This gorgeous preserving book from Fowlers Vacola features recipes, hints and tips for preserving from cooks and chefs, including Stephanie Alexander. Enter the promo code ‘festive’ at checkout to buy this book for $35.95 (a 10% discount on the RRP of $39.95).

Scroll through the gallery of images above for some great examples of homemade presents, as well as some of the items in our online shop.