Sunday, November 2, 2008

Essential Gardening Tools

By Dave Truman

Most of us have seen our parents gardening when we were young. There may have been lots of tools that you may have even played with. You will need some tools of your own if you want to garden as a grownup now.

There are many different garden tools at hand at your local gardening spot. The tools will be in different price ranges and the trick is to not buy a lot of expensive things that you may never use.

Your first item should be a spading fork. It looks similar to a pitch fork, but with a shorter handle and wider tines. The spading fork will help you loosen the hard soil and work the ground so you can add plants.

After your garden is dug up, you need to prepare the soil with the hoe. This gardening tool is wonderful to cultivate the surface of the soil. A well cultivated soil will allow nutrients and water to seep into the ground and nourish the plants. A round ended shovel is another item that is good for larger digging projects. With a round ended shovel you can plant trees and shrubs in your garden.

Your best friend in the garden is water. Your watering can should be equipped with a long nozzle which controls the rate of water flow to allow you a gentle plant watering. It will also enable you to be a little further away while watering the plants. When your seedlings are young, a watering can that has a detachable head is also very useful.

Leveling your garden prior to planting can be done with a bow rake. This gets its name from having a metal frame shaped like a bow. It has short tines attached to one side of the rake. The bow rake allows for easier removal of rocks or large clods of earth. You can smooth the soil with the flat side to make the garden ready for your plants.

Buy good, but not necessarily expensive garden shears, to remove dead branches and stems. They can also be used to prune and shape shrubs as well. The most important thing is that the shears fit the shape of your hand and are comfortable.

These garden tools are just the basic ones that you will need the most. As your interest in gardening expands, you will gain more knowledge about the different gardening tool items that are available and what is best suited for you and your garden. - 15266

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