The Right Tool for the Job
As you wander the aisles of your local hardware or big box store, you may have noticed that right now the shelves are overflowing with an array of gardening tools, gloves and gadgets. For some of us, the urge to buy such things, whether we need them or not, is overwhelming, I mean who doesn’t love a truly well-made trowel? Folks who are new to gardening might be a little confused, though. What is truly necessary, and what’s just nice to have? And when would you use this type of shovel as opposed to that one?
At AGG, our gardeners plant in raised beds that present minimal challenges in terms of breaking ground, preparing soil, and planting, but they also help us out with maintenance, site projects and weeding. Lucky them, this means they’ll have a chance to become experienced with everything from pruning shears to pickaxes, as well as the aforementioned shovels, in all their many shapes and sizes.
The Basics
To make daily plot maintenance easier, we encourage our gardeners to make a few basic purchases. These can be easily stowed in the trunk of your car for that lunch hour when you find yourself swinging by to check your plot on a limited timetable.
Trowel
How detailed can a gardener get in considering the best trowel for their needs? Pretty detailed, as it turns out. When selecting a trowel, bear in mind you will most likely use it simply to dig small holes, draw furrows for seeds and/or stir soil amendments into your bed, but there’s always a chance you may need it to extract some massive dandelion root from our heavy clay soil on a dry summer work day. Choose something sturdy and sharp, and you’ll be ready for anything.
Gloves
You’d think you could do a little digging and weeding with unprotected hands and emerge unscathed, but unfortunately blisters are not the only hazard in a garden environment. Gloves are essential to protect your knuckles from scrapes, your hands from potential skin rashes, and your fingers from spider bites and splinters. Gloves vary widely in terms of materials, fit, and cost, so you may have to experiment a bit to find your perfect pair. No matter what, make sure your chosen gloves fit snugly, or they could cause more blisters than they prevent! Here’s our garden manager’s favorite brand.
Watering Can
Need to water just a little bit and don’t feel like dragging the hose through the garden? No problem, just use a watering can instead. Opt for one with a wide head that sprinkles gently, rather than a narrow one that would flood your tender seedlings.
Hose Nozzle
We provide a nozzle on site, however it’s always a good idea to have your own handy, in case the garden nozzle isn’t available when you arrive. To give yourself options for different types of watering jobs, choose an adjustable spray head. For precision watering, you could even go for a watering wand.
Kitchen Scissors or Garden Pruners
An inexpensive pair of KitchenAid scissors is an incredibly versatile garden tool. Use it to cut cardboard, twine and row cover fabric, chop up spent plants for the compost heap, prune cucumbers, or gently harvest vegetables without damage to the plant. On the other hand, a good pair of pruners is less pointy should you happen to stash it in your hip pocket while working :::wince:::
Twine
Whether you’re marking squares for your square foot garden, constructing a trellis, or taming an unruly tomato plant, twine is a must. Go for something biodegradable, since it will likely end up in the trash or the compost at the end of the season - we like jute twine, it disintegrates after about a year.
More Essential Garden Tools
Hypothetical: you’re volunteering at a work day, and the garden manager asks you to turn the compost, trim back some shrubs, and top up that raised bed over there with soil. Ready to get started, you enthusiastically head for the shed to pick up… what? What tools will you need to get your assignments done?
Here’s are some essential garden tools and their common uses:
Garden Fork? Or Pitchfork?
They both have pointy tines and long handles, but their names will tell you how to choose which one to use. Garden forks have thicker tines and are used for stirring and turning the soil, while pitchforks are curved for scooping and “pitching” organic matter from point A to point B. Read on to learn more about all things "fork".
So. Many. Shovels.
You might choose something sharp and short-handled for moving loose soil, or long-handled and heavy for digging holes. If you’re edging along a sidewalk, or creating space for a paver, a spade is probably best. Here is literally everything you need to know about shovels, ever.
Rakes & Cultivators:
Rakes come in a few basic models: there are garden rakes, with short, inflexible tines and leaf or yard rakes, which are wider, with long, slim, flexible tines.
At our garden, leaf rakes are almost never used. Why? Because we leave the leaves! (More about this in another post soon.)
Garden rakes, on the other hand, are one of the most invaluable of all garden tools, used for spreading soil or mulch and clearing out snake-y wild areas and other weeds.
In addition, a long-handled cultivator is like a narrow rake, only curved, and is one of the best weeding tools we’ve ever found.
In Conclusion…
Knowing which basic tools to use for particular gardening jobs can definitely save you time and energy. And playing around with garden tools is half the fun of gardening!
So the next time the garden manager says “Please bring me that cultivator!” you’ll head for the shed with confidence.