Get a Grip
Having the right equipment makes the gardening experience more efficient and pleasurable, starting with a good pair of garden gloves.Cloth gloves are lightweight and breathable, which is important on hot days. They keep hands clean and protected from bug bites, sunburn, and blisters after a long day of planting, hoeing, or weeding. Leather gloves add more protection against cuts, scrapes, and thorns, and some may also be waterproof.
Rubber-coated gloves are ideal when mixing pesticides, weed killer, and so forth. but can quickly become hot, and some people may risk allergic reactions. Synthetic “rubbers” such as neoprene or nitrile are available as full gloves or as the “palms” on cloth gloves. These provide enhanced grip on tools but offer no protection from thorns or other sharp objects.
Any glove chosen must fit well so that it doesn’t restrict movement while working.
The Scoop on Scoops
Few things see as much use in the garden as a hand trowel, with its pointed tip for loosening a wide variety of soils and weeding, and its curved blade, which is invaluable for planting, transplanting, and adding soil enhancers such as compost.The ideal trowel will comfortably fit in one’s grip—not all hands are sized the same—and have a high-quality blade and handle. Look for single-piece construction. Stainless steel is valued for being bend-proof and rust-resistant, while aluminum and high-quality tempered steel are good, long-lasting choices.
That said, the 97-cent Expert Gardener Light-Weight Plastic Trowel at Walmart will do the job and look the same even when it’s found lying forgotten in a back corner of the garden after a long, snowy winter. However, its tip is not as strong as metal when it comes to working in rocky soil.
Many gardeners opt for a traditional hori hori instead of—or more likely, in addition to—a hand trowel. A “soil knife” or “weeding knife,” a hori hori features sharp, multi-purpose blades, with one side being serrated for added versatility. These knives excel at light digging chores, cutting through weeds, clearing away soil from the crown of a plant, transplanting small plants, and dividing perennials.
Big Digs
Shovel and spade are often used interchangeably, but incorrectly. A spade has a pointed tip that is designed for cutting and digging, including straight, flat-bottom trenches, removing sod for a new garden bed, adding organic matter to garden soil, and harvesting root crops such as potatoes. Look for one with a hardened steel blade and steel shaft. The average spade has a 45-inch or longer handle. Choose one with a handle that fits comfortably between your elbows and chest. Shorter, 18-inch to two-foot handles are designed for smaller jobs or tight spaces.Snip, Snip
A vegetable gardener’s thumbnails and forefingers get endless use during the season when it comes to pinching off herbs to harvest, nipping growing tips to shape a plant, and removing the occasional bug-infested leaf. For bigger jobs, there are hand anvil pruners, hand bypass pruners, and long-handled bypass loppers that significantly extend a gardener’s reach. It must be noted that anvil pruners can crush a branch being cut and are therefore recommended only for removing dead branches.More Tools With Teeth
Often sold as a pair with a hand trowel, hand forks are three-toothed compact rakes that can do everything from aerating small areas of soil to turning a compost heap for quicker breakdown. Its larger cousin, the four-tine garden fork, effectively breaks up and turns soil, particularly hard soil. Similarly, garden prep and end-of-season cleanup wouldn’t be as efficient without a metal-bladed rake, nor clearing out fallen tree leaves without a flexible, thin metal or plastic rake designed to remove surface debris.When the budget allows, invest in the best tool available. It’ll save money in the long run.
