Friday, October 31, 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.

A visit to your local garden shop will reveal that there are many different gardening tool items available. The price range will vary from one piece to the next. The tricky part is buying what you need and not going for lots of expensive things that you might never use.

The first item that you will need is a spading fork. This gardening tool looks like a pitchfork, but it has a shorter handle and the tines are wider. You will need to use the spading fork to dig into hard soil and open the ground up for planting.

You will need to prepare the ground with a hoe after you've dug it. A hoe will allow you to cultivate the soil so nutrients and water will be able to find its way to the plants. You may also need a round ended shovel if you plan to plant larger items such as trees or shrubs.

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.

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