Gardening doesn’t take much – just soil, seeds, and some gardening tools. Here are 5 essential tools, and tips on how to use them.
5 Essential Garden Craft Tools
You don’t need much gardening. You don’t need tillers, you don’t need wood-framed beds, you don’t need fancy gadgets. All you really need is soil, seeds and some gardening tools.
Today we’re featuring my top 5 garden tools and you’ll learn how to use each tool in your garden.
Garden Hand Tool #1: Shovel
A sort of shovel It is the most basic gardening tool. With it, you can dig garden beds, chop down tree roots, bury compostable materials and fight zombies.
I like to double dig some beds to make them nice and loose. We also like to chop down weeds in small areas, then dig deep holes, pour in fresh chicken manure, meat scraps, dead fish and other high nitrogen materials, then close the lid and plant corn, melon, sunflower or pumpkin on it .
like this:
Here my friend Scott Head takes the same approach:
Who would have thought that a shovel was a composting tool?
Garden Hand Tool #2: Digging fork
a good one Digging fork It’s hard to find these days, but if you can find one, it’s a great way to start a new garden. Fork the soil, pull weeds, rak and plant.
My favourite forks are the Clarington Forge forks I bought back when they were still made in the UK. Now they are made in India and I don’t trust the quality anymore so I’m glad I got mine.
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If you want to double dig a bed, first dig a trench with a shovel, then spread the bottom with a fork to loosen the soil well. The roots of plants prefer open soil and will go deep in search of water and nutrients. With deep, loose soil, your garden needs less water and less fertilizer. Forks help with this.
Garden Hand Tool #3: machete
Where would I be without me machete? I use it for everything from chopping up compost material to planting transplants to cutting bamboo stakes for my tomatoes.
A good machete is a very useful tool. I carry mine around all the time and use it for various tasks around the farm. As a bonus, it’s a great weapon. As long as you don’t lose any fingers.
Garden Hand Tool #4: rake
Image Source Dean Moriarty From focus on
If I had to choose a rake for gardening, I would choose a hard tine landscape rake, as it is the best choice for making new garden beds and raking beds. After that I get a leaf rake which is great for collecting leaves and mowing the compost pile.
Garden Hand Tool #5: how
Two hoes (L: regular garden hoe; R: stirrup hoe) – Banner, CC BY-SA 4.0
I could write an entire article about all kinds of hoes. I have a wheeled hoe, a melee hoe, a big triangle eye hoe, multiple grub hoes, a grape hoe, a wide-blade sharp digging hoe, and a collection of antique garden hoes that we use a lot.
A weeding hoe is the first thing you need. My favorite hoes are old antique hoes made of high quality steel. Most modern hoes are junk.If you can get an old hoe, buy it and use it—Steel and construction are much better.
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Put a good edge on the hoe and bend the swan neck so it decapitates the weeds nicely without making you bend your back, then you’ll find it pretty much works for itself.
I can get rid of our 7,000 square foot garden bed in an hour or so, provided I don’t let the weeds grow for more than a few weeks before hoeing.
After I have a good weeding hoe, I look for a digging hoe to chop new ground and shape garden beds. Eye hoes are very useful in the West, but underutilized. EasyDigging.com Sell some nice varieties.
in conclusion
With these five tools, you’ll be able to create and maintain garden beds for years—No gas is required. All of this together will cost you less than half the price of a tiller.
Get good hand tools and they will serve you for years, even generations.
What do you think?
What’s your favorite gardening tool? Let us know in the comments!
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This article was originally published on June 24, 2021.
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