Garden Basics2

Garden Basics: Tools

One of the most enjoyable parts of gardening is playing in the dirt. With your hands. And as you first start gardening, this is often what you do. There are no tools or gadgets to use, because our hands suffice just fine. As our gardens grow though, it can be helpful to pick up a few items to care for your garden. So here we'll look at some of the most basic gardening tools that may be useful to you this year.

Garden Trowel - A garden trowel is simply a small hand held shovel which is useful for container gardening work, as well as working in smaller garden beds. A small trowel comes in handy for scooping soil out of a bag and into a pot, from one pot to another, or for digging small holes in the lawn to place starter seedling plants in.

Garden Fork - There are actually two types of garden forks. One has a long handle like a rake, and it is useful for turning compost bins, but the type we recommend for beginner gardeners is a handheld fork. These come in handy for preparing new garden bed areas which have grass or weeds in them, because you can rake them along the ground to break up the soil while also tearing up the roots of the grass and weeds. These can also be useful for getting a new plant hole dug when the ground is hard and dry.

Gloves - Garden gloves should be one of the first things you buy, particularly if you're using hand tools or taking care of thorny plants such as rose bushes. Wearing garden gloves will save you from getting blisters from the tools, and they'll help you to not get pricked by thorns or cactus spines. Garden gloves are also useful though, just for keeping the juice of certain plants and flowers off your skin. Some plant juices will cause a rash, itching, or burning sensations when they touch your skin, so wearing gloves helps prevent those problems too.

Pruners - Garden pruners come in a variety of shapes and sizes, plus they actually have different names depending upon how big they are. For beginners though, and people with small gardens, pruners are small and handy for trimming back flower plants or vines, clipping off dead stuff from the plants, and pruning the flowers and plants into desired shapes and sizes.

Watering Can - A watering can is not essential to a gardener, but most of us like them anyway. They're also handy to have on hand for watering those areas of the garden which aren't easily reachable with a garden hose. Another thing watering cans are great for though, is to use for your more tender plants and flowers. Sometimes a water hose puts out water too fast and too hard, and the stream can damage delicate flowers. So using a watering can for this is a much more gentle way of giving your plants and flowers a drink.

This list is of course just the very beginning of the types of tools and supplies you'll collect for your gardening adventures over time. It's an excellent place to start though, particularly if you're new to gardening, or if you have a very small garden area for now. This list is also great to use for gardening gift ideas, because most avid gardeners can't usually have just one of the above mentioned items!