If you’re one of those green-thumbed folks who’s lucky enough to be able to go beyond an indoor garden, you know garden tools are a backyard grower’s best friend. A few pieces of basic gear will help you prep and plant your garden more easily and efficiently, and help you enjoy more successful harvests.
But which tools do you really need, and which gardening gadgets can you leave on the shelf? We asked the experts, and it’s clear they take these things seriously. “I can’t live without my soil knife,” said Jessica Schweiger, PennState Extension’s Master Gardener coordinator for Philadelphia County.
Read on for an expert take on must-have tools for your home garden, plus a list of the stuff you probably don’t need.
9 essential garden tools, according to experts
Gloves
She’s not just about soil knives. “I recommend a good pair of gardening gloves,” Schweiger told us.
Her favorite pair of warm-weather gloves are the lightweight yet protective Showa Atlas 360 Garden Gloves, while her favorite insulated gloves for use in the garden during cold weather are the Bellingham WG338 Rubber Gloves. A good pair will be light enough to give you dexterity while protecting your fingers from scratches, scrapes and dirt.
Pruners
Pruners have various uses, from pruning fruit trees to thinning melon vines to harvesting peppers. A good set will be long-lasting, hold a sharp blade, be easy to maintain and feel comfortable in your hands.
“My favorite brand of pruners is Felco,” said Andrew Bunting, vice president of horticulture at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. “It’s a brand that’s really durable. I’ve had my Felco pruners for decades. I sometimes have to replace the blades, but that’s about it.”
Trowel
A trowel or small handheld shovel makes small, precise tasks like planting seedlings or repotting container plants easier than it would be with a larger tool. Bunting recommends seeking out a trowel that’s made from a single piece of steel. It might cost more than cheaper versions, where the handle is attached to a separate blade, but those can be more prone to breakage at that junction point.
Soil knife
An alternative or complement to the trowel is that soil knife we spoke of, also called a digging knife or hori hori knife. This multiuse tool is ideal for keeping on your belt or sheathed in a back pocket for small jobs that pop up around the garden.
“It’s so handy for digging holes,” said Schweiger, “but it also has a serrated edge so you can cut tough roots or weeds, and it has measurements on the blade.”
Hoe
Weed removal is one of the toughest tasks gardeners face. All that crouching, pulling and tugging on stubborn weeds can take a toll on the body, but a hoe makes the process much easier.
“A nice sharp hoe has really saved my back and made removing weeds so much easier,” Schweiger told us.
She recommends a stirrup hoe, which has a loop-shaped blade to cut below the soil surface, for taking care of tougher weeds. A collinear hoe is ideal for more delicate weeding around low-growing plantings, as its blade cuts through unwanted invaders at the stem with minimal soil disruption.
Garden hose
Unless your garden is confined to a window box or a few pots on your stoop, you’ll benefit from a quality garden hose. Investing in a lightweight, fast-flowing and durable hose now will pay off later in time saved patching leaks and money saved on replacements. Bunting recommends Flexogen hoses, or check out CNET’s rundown of the best garden hoses.
Breaker nozzle
At your local hardware store, you’ll see all manner of sprayers, nozzles and other attachments for the end of a hose. Instead of fancy nozzles with multiple settings, Bunting prefers a breaker nozzle. This attachment is similar to a showerhead, dispersing water gently rather than spraying in a harsh stream that can disturb the soil or damage delicate plants.
Dramm is Bunting’s recommended brand. The company also makes watering wands fitted with a breaker nozzle to make aiming and reaching while watering a little easier.
A spade or shovel
You might think a shovel and a spade are the same thing, but these garden tools have slightly different features, for different jobs.
A shovel is intended for moving soil from one place to another or digging a shallow hole. It’ll have a deeper bowl and may have a pointed tip to better penetrate the soil surface. A spade, on the other hand, has a straight, sharp blade that’s flatter and shallower. It’s designed to make deeper, precise cuts into the soil and is ideal for tasks like edging or digging holes for plantings. Bunting recommends spades and shovels from the brand King of Spades.
Rakes
You may already have a rake or two on hand for maintaining your lawn and dealing with fallen leaves. These tools are also useful when preparing ornamental or vegetable garden beds for planting.
Bunting recommends having a leaf rake — the kind with the thin, lightweight tines — on hand for clearing debris as you prep for spring planting or spread compost or mulch over beds. A grading rake, sometimes called a hard rake, can help you level soil before planting.
7 garden tools you probably don’t need
Handheld fork
Schweiger finds a full-size garden fork to be useful for tasks like loosening soil and digging up potatoes, but she can’t say the same for handheld forks.
“They always come in sets with trowels, and I just never use them,” she said.
Dandelion weeder
If you have a soil knife, you don’t need a dandelion weeder, but that won’t stop companies from trying to sell you gadgets that look more like a fondue fork than a gardening tool.
“If you need a weeding tool, get a hori hori knife, not a dandelion fork or other gimmicky weeding tools,” Bunting told us.
Store-bought soil tests
Schweiger highly recommends testing the soil in any new gardening location for fertility as well as possible contaminants like lead, especially for urban gardeners. But the ones you can pick up at the hardware store aren’t reliable.
“Cheap, commercial soil tests are not particularly accurate,” she said. “I always recommend getting a soil fertility test through an accredited lab.”
Universities like Penn State, Rutgers, the University of Massachusetts and others offer soil testing services by mail for a small fee.
Self-watering pots
For Bunting, gardeners are better off checking the soil moisture in potted plants than trusting self-watering pots, which typically have a reservoir for excess water and a wick that delivers it to the plant over time.
“I’ve seen dozens of those,” he said. “Not to say there isn’t one that works, but I’ve seen more failures than successes.”
Moisture meters
Another water-related gadget that’s not worth your money is a moisture meter, according to Schweiger.
“I don’t think a moisture meter is going to give you more information than you could get by digging down into the soil with your finger,” she says.
Power tools
If you’re pretty green in the gardening department, you probably don’t need to add power tools to your list of startup gardening tools, Bunting said. However, if you’re in the market for tools like leaf blowers, chainsaws or lawnmowers, he encourages people to choose battery-powered electric options over gas-powered models.
“There’s great battery-operated equipment nowadays for almost everything that you might need,” he told us, noting that manufacturers often make rechargeable batteries that can be used interchangeably in different pieces of equipment in their product line. “I do have a leaf blower, but it’s battery operated, so it doesn’t require any fossil fuels or create noise pollution.”
Irrigation system
“Everybody wants to install an irrigation system,” Bunting says, but he recommends rainwater or hand-watering instead of sprinklers. “When the system goes in, it works, but inevitably, the system gets compromised or the plants grow up in such a way that when the sprinkler comes on, some plants get too much water and other plants don’t get enough. It seems like a good idea, but it’s really not.”
Instead, make the most of water from rain or your hose by adding a few inches of organic mulch to the soil surface. That will help retain moisture, allowing you to go a little longer between waterings.
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