What are the essential garden tools for beginners? Today I’ll answer this question in detail. It’s a fac that having your garden with blooming flowers and tempting fruits and vegetables is an all-season delight. Spending time in your house garden after a tired and busy day is a rejuvenating experience.
Are you new to gardening? While you may hire a professional gardener to look after your nursery, there are a few underlying garden tools to make your gardening practice fun, easier, and effective. Here are five gardening tools that will help you get your favorite vegetable or fruits blooming in your backyard or a lush green lawn.
Here are 5 Essential Garden Tools For The Beginners
1. Gardening Gloves
Any gardening activity can soil your hands. The prickly thorns and muddy rows can spoil your garden clothing. A sturdy and durable pair of gloves is the first thing to aim for before setting up your garden activity. Make sure your gloves are not too bulky, especially when you are working with seed.
The fabric choice in gardening gloves is also a vital thing. Go in for breathable and water-resistant gloves to keep your hands comfortable and easy-going. There are many types of gardening gloves–cloth, rubber-coated leather, and neoprene to protect your hands from cuts and scrapes.
While choosing your gloves, ensure they are longer-cuffed to guard your wrists and forearms against scratches and thorns. For indoor gardening, get yourself energy-efficient fixtures like Spider Farmer LED grow lights for vegetable growing. They play the same role as natural sunlight. Also, keep your garden gloves away from sunlight, water, and insects for extended use.
2. Hand Pruners
Changing weather like wind and snowfall can damage and harm the plants. Pruning shears, also called secateurs, is a gardening tool to remove unwanted and dead plant material. This gardening aid is the best equipment to trim leaves, buds, roots, and branches.
Anvil-style pruners work much like a knife and can snip dead twigs till half-inch. Bypass pruners are like scissors where two shape edge blades pass by each other to prune live plant material. Anvil pruners help snip dead wood, whereas bypass runners are suitable for pruning live plants and give a smooth cut. Ratcheting pruners have higher cutting strength and are ideal for people with lowered hand strength or arthritis disease.
Sharpen your pruning tools after every six weeks to give a clean cut to your garden plants. Professional gardeners can hone their pruning tools once or twice a year, depending on the tool usage.
3. Garden Fork
Gardening activity goes beyond essential things like water, fertilizers, and hedge clippers. You need to turn in garden soil and dig deep into the manure to provide more air to the plant. A garden fork is a handy tool for this task. Its sturdy handle and short tines help you in turning the manure and lifting vegetation.
Straight pitchforks are suitable for digging into clay and rocky soil containing roots and stones. Lifting pitchforks stand firmer and can lift long grass, weeds, hedge clippings, and bulky material to and from a wheelbarrow.
When deciding to buy a pitchfork, go for a stainless steel digging fork. It has rust-free resistance, and its ergonomic handle gives you a non-slip grip.
4. Wheelbarrow
Carrying garden essentials like manure, tools, plants, soils, plucked weed, and scrap across the garden can get tiresome. A wheelbarrow helps you transport fertilizers and dead vegetation from one corner of the nursery to another. It is fast and lightweight in moving around. But, if you have a few pots in your windowsill, or a small garden in the backyard, then a wheelbarrow may look like a misfit.
Find out your garden dimensions before buying a wheelbarrow. The traditional design has a dual-handle and a single wheel and may face balancing issues with an uneven load. If you have uneven garden terrain, a two-wheel model will be easier to balance. The wheels of a wheelbarrow may be hard to use on rough terrain. Bar-type ergonomic handles are comfortable and put less strain on your upper arms.
5. Hose Reel
Water is an indispensable resource in gardening. It keeps the plants hydrated. It also brings new life to plant buds by carrying soil nutrients to growing cells. That’s why water is so essential to maintain a healthy garden.
Since watering a garden needs effort and toil, a garden hose brings flexibility and ease in watering one corner to another. Garden hoses come in various materials like rubber and vinyl. Rubber hoses are durable and heavy-duty and can last longer when used with care. Vinyl hoses are lightweight and inexpensive, and not as sturdy as rubber hoses. Hoses also come in different diameters. Half-inch diameter is the most common in garden hoses. Roll up your hose on a reel to keep it handy and tidy.
Final Thoughts
Invest in more gardening tools like a shovel, step ladder, hoe, rake, watering can, and a sprayer with time and interest. You can also look at things like flower boxes, if you’re planning to plant flowers in your garden. The arsenal of tools / accessories can keep growing.
Consider buying few gardening books. Knowing advanced gardening techniques will help you take good care of your garden plants and ward off any damage because of weather or pests.
Watch this space for updates in the Hacks category on Running Wolf’s Rant.
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