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!
No one wants to think about garden injuries or the mistakes that lead to those injuries. I know I don’t. A garden is a place of joy and happiness. It’s where we go to destress and commune with nature. Gardens provide beauty and nourishment. That’s all true. But my back might have a few more […]
Friends, it is officially spring. The sun is out, the skies are blue, and the local flora and fauna are appearing. There’s a robin in a tree near my window sitting in his new nest, and the daffodils are spreading their colorful joy all over the place. Of course, I’m in New England, so it’s […]
My daughter has a number of subscription boxes, from sensory play boxes to kid chef boxes. Before our dog passed, he even had a subscription box! My social media feed is filled with subscription box ads for clothes, wine, and coffee. As gardeners, however, we all know that gardening subscription boxes are where it’s at! […]
Gardening is only work if you make it! Maybe it’s because I’m an elder-millennial, but I am totally fine with scoping out the latest gardening gadgets. Sure, I’ve wasted plenty of dough testing out silly things that were either useless, or could have been made as a DIY for a lot less, but what’s the […]
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.
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 […]
My brother has cerebral palsy and is blind. He’s spent most of his life in a wheelchair, and one of his favorite activities is gardening. He was lucky enough to go to Perkins School for the Blind on a scholarship (where Helen Keller went to school!), and even as a kid, I remember their beautiful, […]
My daughter is just about at that age where she really loves reading with me. For a while there I thought she might just be meant for parkour or extreme sports, but lately she’s down to sit for a few minutes while we read. And since we both love gardening, I went looking for gardening books for preschoolers and was not disappointed!
As someone who has suffered from back issues since I was a teen, and vertigo as an adult, the idea of bending over for a long time, and the standing up and sitting down over and over again routine is something I dread. So while I’m not a senior, I empathize with and actively seek […]
Learning to start canning your own foods is an exciting time! Most folks start out with water bath canning goods like jellies and syrups, and then move up to the big canning tools like a pressure canner for broths, sauces, and meats. Whether you’re learning how to can, or just need canning tools to create […]
