August 10, 2016

These are a Few of My Favorite Tools

I'll pause while you sing the song from Sound of Music.
You're welcome.

I thought it might be fun to unpack my gardening bag and show you what all I lug around the yard with me when I'm working.

First, I should just tell you, this is the first time that bag had been completely emptied out in a couple of years. There were several cups of dirt in the bottom.
I guess I'm lucky the bag hasn't started sprouting!

Here we go!
I'll start on the left.
Top left there is a bundle of twine. I use this stuff all the time--to tie things up, of course!
(Plants, NOT children. Ahem.)
I use it often enough that it's nice to have with me in the bag.

Next I have clippers and pruners of various sizes.
Probably the most used ones are the 2 smaller ones there next to my gloves.
They are perfect for deadheading and other such chores.
(For big pruning jobs, I get the loppers out of the shed.)

In the same general vicinity, you may notice a steak knife and a pocketknife.
Various uses. Pruners are great, but they don't open bags very well (or cut twine.)
Sometime I would love to get a Japanese soil knife. I've heard they do it all.

Above the pruners are seed packets.
I usually have some in the end pockets of the bag, partly due to laziness and partly to plant as space becomes available. To be honest though, it's mostly laziness.

The big pink bucket is for holding clippings and weeds of all sorts.
It holds a lot, it has handles, and it's flexible.
I used to use an empty plant pot. This is way better!

Okay, let's talk about gloves for a minute.
I never used to wear gardening gloves and even thought myself above such things.
Then I had kids.
Let me just tell you--gloves are lifesavers when you have lots of interruptions!
If you've got a child needing urgent help with something, you can just take off your gloves and go to the rescue. Now imagine the same scenario, no gloves.
Your hands are covered in dirt, child is calling from--let's say the bathroom (because isn't it always?!) for help. Um....Mama, you've first got to scrub those hands before you can do anything, unless you want to add big muddy handprints to the mess you've got to clean up.
Not good!
So all I'm saying is, gloves are your friends.
Get several pairs.

In my bag at any given time I've got one pair of gardening gloves and one pair of leather gloves.
For everyday gardening, I like the kind with cloth backs and rubber or latex coating on the palms and fingers. The latex coating offers some protection from wetness and smaller spiny weeds.
The leather gloves are for working with roses or extra spiny weeds.

Of course, there's my trusty bag.
I have tried wearing something around my waist in the past, but as most of what I do is kneeling or bending over, it just seemed to get in the way a lot.

The last 3 things:
a weeder, and 2 trowels

For work in my flowerbeds, I almost always use a trowel.
There are so many plants filling in the spaces that I need the precision.
If I'm putting in a new shrub or something, I would grab one of the shovels out of the shed.

Since this picture was taken, one of my trowels has gone missing.
I'm not too happy about it either.

Oh, must not forget this beauty!
This is a foam kneeling pad.
It is especially helpful when I do work kneeling on the walls, or rocky places, or when it is wet out and I don't want to get completely muddy.

Ready for work!

Do you have a favorite gardening tool that I should know about?


2 comments:

  1. Ha, I always wear gloves too, which is very useful. Though somehow I still always end up with lots of dirt under my fingernails. I've started ending up with a weird gardening tan, too, with tan arms and white hands. I think I use pretty much the same tools you do.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, gotta love the gardener's tan!

    ReplyDelete