Category: Garden Tools

In the articles below, discover the best garden tools for vegetable gardening. See comparisons of tools, short-lists of favorites, and learn whether those super-specific one-purpose tools are ever worth the buy.

There are many useful gardening tools out there, all at different price points. When purchasing your garden tools, think about versatility. How many different ways can you use a particular tool? Most-used garden tools are simple in form, budget-friendly, and can be used for at least three or four different tasks.

It’s tempting to roam the aisles of a big box home and garden store and scoop up everything you could possibly need to build a garden tool kit. The smell of fertilizer and peat moss wafting in the air. The polished concrete floors, helping your shopping cart glide like butter to the checkout. 

Our advice when building a garden tool kit? Keep it simple! Seasoned gardeners don’t use all those doodads and gadgets you can find lining the gardening aisles. 

As for weeding? To rake or to spray, that is the question! Like many garden tools, you can go all out and spend hundreds of dollars on a Lithium-ion, cordless weed killer sprayer. But weed killers can be pretty icky, especially when going near vegetables. As for weeding tools, there’s really no shortage to choose from. Generally speaking, there are two types of weeding tools: short-handled and long-handled. Short-handled tools can let you be a little more precise and you only need one hand to use most of them. The downside is that you have to sit or bend over to use them. Long-handled tools are nice because you can stand and they also give you more leverage. However, these usually require two hands and it’s not unheard of to damage one of your vegetables if your aim is a little off. With that in mind, here are some of our favorite weeding tools.

In the articles below, we dive into everything you need to know about garden tools, and you can learn more about them in our How to Grow a Vegetable Garden: 10 Things Every Gardener Needs to Know Before Starting a Food Garden freebie. Enjoy!

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Garden Tools

What is My USDA Planting Zone?

USDA Hardiness Map

The mysterious USDA planting zone (aka plant hardiness zone) isn’t all that mysterious once you get to know it. It’s like the overlooked love interest in every 80’s RomCom. Always there in plain sight. Always ignored. Then one day, you wake up and realize that no, you can’t plant a banana tree in Maine. But you could have the best darn blueberries in the world. If only you had noticed earlier that your USDA planting zone was there telling you all along that blueberries are the way to go. 

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Garden Tools

Is it a shovel or is it a spade?

How’s the back? Has it stopped aching yet? Charles Dudley Warner said: “What one needs in gardening is a cast-iron back with a hinge in it.” He was right! Mine’s only just recovered from the snow-shovelling season and now the gardening season has arrived to restore it to its usual dull throb. Regardless, I’m thrilled […]

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Garden Tools

The Best Weeding Tool for Your Vegetable Garden

Goat nibbling tomato plant.

Okay, maybe it’s a bit tongue in cheek to say that the best weeding tool for your vegetable garden is a goat. But did you know that some office parks and building managers actually hire goats to clear fields? It’s true. And is there anything cuter than a baby goat? Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on it.

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Garden Tools

The Best Weed Killer Sprayer for a Vegetable Garden

Let’s just talk about the pink elephant head flowers in the room, shall we? Weed killer sprayer could very well be your best friend’s sister’s ex-boyfriend’s favorite band. For our purposes, though, we’re sticking to actual garden tools. (Speaking of bands, am I the only one with R.E.M. “Gardening at Night” in my head every time I snip some basil in the evening?)

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Garden Tools

What’s the Best Type of Wood for Raised Beds?

The only thing better than enjoying the produce from your garden is planning your garden. I could spend hours looking through seed catalogs, checking out the latest garden equipment, drawing maps of what my garden might look like, and, naturally, thinking about the best type of wood for raised beds. After all, you want something that isn’t going to rot, but you also don’t want anything treated with chemicals. 

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Garden Tools

The Best Tool for Digging Holes for Plants Revealed

Gardening tools

Some years ago, when I was a kid, I planted my first “garden.” It wasn’t exactly what you might recognize as a garden, and unless you count rocks, there wasn’t really anything growing in my garden. But the holes I dug were world class. Probably because, in all the wisdom of my single-digit years, I knew I had the best tool for digging holes for plants: a stick. 

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Garden Tools

Comparing 3 Different Makes of Garden Tools Bond vs. Radius vs. Prohoe

Ever go shopping for a car? From a distance, they all are more or less the same. They have four wheels, a driver’s seat and room for passengers. There’s an engine, a stereo, and a trunk, but they all do pretty much the same thing. Then you start looking at the different makes of cars. There are luxury models with smooth rides, sporty cars with lots of horsepower, entry level models with safety features designed for new drivers – they really are very different once you get into the details. 

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Garden Tools

How to Use a Garden Tiller to Create Perfect Garden Beds

Oh, the perfect garden bed. ‘Tis a dream of every gardener. But if you’re used to using a hoe, rake, spade, or other hand tools, a garden tiller, despite its helpfulness, can feel a bit intimidating. It’s kind of like riding a bike, then switching over to a car with a manual transmission. There’s nothing wrong with either, and if you’re just heading to the grocery store for some eggs and cheese, the bike is just fine. However, the car is probably a better option for that family vacation two states over. 

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Garden Tools

6 Garden Aeration Tools: Which Work Best?

Over time, the soil in your garden can become compacted and dense. As we walk through the garden or move heavy equipment over it, the pressure pushes all that soil closer and closer together. And as you may know, garden aeration is necessary to loosen that soil.  Looser soil makes it easier for roots to […]

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Garden Tools

How to Keep Garden Tools from Rusting

One of the issues I think almost all gardeners have dealt with at some point is figuring out how to keep garden tools from rusting. No doubt we’ve all gone to grab our favorite spade in the spring only to discover that beautiful metal we remember from last season is now brittle and brown.  If […]