Garden Tools and Tricks I Can't Live Without!

I was unable to budge my SILs Pacific Iris with a shovel. The rhizome was so dense and fibrous. Without the knife I don't think I would have gotten them divided. Once I did, I swear I could hear them breathe.

I guess you can weed with them, too.

Here's what they look like:

http://www.cleanairgardening.com/horihoriknife.html

Oh, and, yes, Sharon, I hope you're having a fabulous birthday. Gemini, yes?

Sharon, I just looked at a Gardener's Edge catalog and they had the CobraHead, and a special on shipping, I think.

Love trugs!

Thanks, all, for the B'day greetings. Wish I was 39 again, with the experiences that I now have at ????/ Acutally I hope to be 39 for the rest of my life!

Kathy, yes. Gemini. Reminds me of my theme song..."Don't fall in love with a Gemini girl, She'll break your heart in "TWO" . Unfortunately, my Gemini guy did that by dying unexpectedly on me. His b'day was two days after mine, a Gemini also. Whoops, I should be in the philisophy thread!!!!!

This message was edited Jun 12, 2009 10:01 PM

Happy birthday to Sharon Happy birthday to you Happy birthday.......Sharon Happy birthday to another fellow Gemini.
This is my other favorite garden tool. My trailer.

So he really must be on your mind this time of year. You're now doing the birthdays for both of you eh? I like the 39 forever idea I love trugs too I put weeds in one and sticks and bark in another and can still carry the together to their relative copost areas

My favorite tool is homemade... a dinner fork with the last 1/4" of the tines bent at right angles to the fork. I also have barbecue forks with a half inch bent down. I squash the tines together a bit. Marvelous for weeding out buttercup seedings or the burdock that infests my beds. Since I use bio intensive spacing, its just right to get into the little nooks and crannies.
peg

Steve, your trailier is great. I have a PU with a similar dump bed that is very useful when appropriate.

So.....I found out that my favorite "hand weeder" is technically a "Nejiri
Gama Hoe" and my "digger" is technically a "cuttlefish hoe". So there you go.....

Guess it helps to know the real names if you would want to get one.

Pegmumm, haven't seen you around before, but really appreciate hearing your ideas too. Are you new to DG?

Great ideas, Pegmumm. With your 'bio intensive spacing' does that mean you use a shoe horn to fit everything? Victorgardener over in the NE forum says that what he uses - a shoehorn. His gardens are beautiful.

I read somewhere that when you start weeding, you should first addreass the bed you finished last time, getting any new stuff, and then proceed to a new area. Has anyone been successful at trying this?

I am leaving for 10 days to visit friends in Minnesota and am hoping that I will have lots of input here on how to catch up with what has happened in my garden by the time I get back.

Can't even think about how to catch up here when I am back on line, (even with DG)!

I have lots of rules for weeding, depending on my mood, & whether or not I want to obey my own rules, LOL.
The one that's easiest to deal with is if I plant something new, I have to weed within a 3' radius of the new plant.
One that worked well this year was to go outside to weed starting in February - spending at least 20 minutes per day. 20 minutes was easy to deal with especially when it's cold.
Now I am watering areas & then weeding those same areas the next day. Easier to pull.

I've been following this thread for quite a while, but just now took a picture of my must have tools.

I don't have any tricks yet, I don't think, but these I can't live without. If I would've thought about it I would've thrown in my roll of flagging as well!

my omage to my must haves

I need some new boots. Our ground is uneven and I do better with something around my ankles. Those look good, Redchic.

Another tool I like is a knife I got from A.M. Leonard similar to a Hori Kori. http://www.amleo.com/index/item.cgi? Never realized how useful it would be. I needed it yesterday separating some big clumps of Epidendrums.

Thanks Kaper! Yep, I'm a firm believer that good boots make any day in an uneven yard, or mucky yard, much, much better! That knive looks like a great tool. I'll have to check into those. Thanks.

I am looking for boots that are washable but don't make your feet so hot.
Does anyone use a long hoe to weed? Sitting on the ground and bending over is killing my back. I've tried kneeling and sitting on a foam mat, even half-sitting-half-sitting but my bones hurt! Does a long hoe help?

Judi,

Mom and I love what we call our "hoopie hoe" but is actually called a "stirrup hoe" for light weeding. We use it religiously to do a quick weed on our vegitable garden where there is room between plants to use it. This is what it looks like:

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/003751.php

Doesn't work well in a garden where the plants are too close together though.

Julie - thanks! That looks like exactly what I need. Today's mission is to get one of those. I appreciate the suggestion.

I need one, too. Does it work better than a pointy hoe?

Works way better than the pointy hoe! You can actually get down below the roots easily. I think that McLendons sells them, and I have seen them at ACE as well.

Mine is called a Hula Hoe.

KaperC, which knife is it? The link doesn't go straight to it.

They call it a 'soil knife.' Sorry that link didn't work - try this one: http://www.amleo.com/index/item.cgi?cmd=view&Words=4752

They also have the Hori Kori, which is similar: http://www.amleo.com/index/item.cgi?cmd=view&Words=k634

I saw the soil knife It looks handy!

I got a hoe today and I love it! Julie, it looks just like yours. Thank you for the recommendation!

Judi, We've both got to thank my Mom as she was the one who intro'd me to it. It is a wonder though. That is one of the great things about this thread...when you spend a lot of time in the garden, you have tried a lot of tools and tricks and found what has worked and what has been kicked in the corner. I believe that anything that someone here says is "the hit" will be so!

It is especially helpful to new gardeners like me.

I love my knee pads, my stirrup hoe for weeding while standing up, and my rose gloves for pulling up blackberries and pokey weeds (also nettles). A couple years ago I went and bought 2 pairs of good gardening shoes - one pair of boots for winter and one pair of low slip ons for summer. I have misplaced the summer pair! and am wearing the boots now, but sure wish I could find the other pair. Don't know where I could have put them! They were expensive but well worth the money I spent.

You don't know how happy that makes me to know that I'm not the only one who misplaces things. Sorry, you can't find them. I'm sure they will show up where you least expect it. I am forever trying to retrace my steps to find things.

I love my stirrup hoe for mixing fertilizers and plant food into the soil. I use a Ginsu serrated knife to divide perennials with fleshy roots like hostas and bananas works great on banana leaves as well.

I agree with the notion of misplacing my gardening stuff. My problem is that I usually stay out in the garden until dark and then I don't always find all of the tools that I brought out. But it's always interesting to see where I find them when I do happen across them again.

One way I try to avoid losing my hand tools is to put them in a bucket of rocks whenever I put them down for a moment while doing something else. Now this might sound strange, but I have many buckets ( pots that plants came in) of small rocks here and there throughout the garden. I add more rocks when I dig them up, and they provide a handy place to put a tool down. A rock bucket is rarely far from where I am working. It is much easier to search rock buckets for a missing tool in the dim light of the evening than it is to scour about every plant I might have weeded around.

I am glad that I am not the only one who loses tools! I try to paint the handles on mine in a bright color to keep them from blending in, but still manage to lose them once in a while. I have found them in the compost several times, and once found my two pound sledge hammer that I had been missing for a whole season when I was cleaning up dead phlox stems the following spring. Had been using it it to pound a stake in to hold up the phlox.

Maury, like the idea of both the rock buckets and that being a good place to set a tool down! It seems like my yard grows rocks!

Holly - I think of you every time I add a new cat litter bucket to my stack. I'm saving a few for you.

I find them very handy for storing and transporting specific tools; e.g. fence-mending supplies, supplies for digging up non-hardy plants in the fall, maintenance supplies (slow-release fertilizer, small stakes, Sluggo). They have lids and if you keep the lid with the bucket, you can put the lids on to protect the contents if you inadvertently leave a bucket out in the rain.

I was at Sorticulture (good to see you Linda) and got some awesome Florian ratchet pruners. I really wanted the mini loppers and hedge cutters, too. LOL. They are spendy, but their cutting power was amazing. I still may get a few tools. The demonstration was fantastic.

http://www.floriantools.com/

I am adopting the rockbucket-tool idea. That will work. I also have a small collection of kitty litter buckets. Now I have birdseed in them because I got moths when Mom moved her birdseed here. What a mess they are. Hard to get rid of even though I use the traps.

3 -5 gallon size containers filled at least part way with rocks can be positioned along a path for keeping hoses out of a planted area, as well as a place to stick a hose: the water will flow out of all the holes. Easy way to steer water to several areas at once.

Thanks Kathy. Maybe someday we will meet up to exchange things. I know there are a few plants on my porch intended for you. There is a Farm tour on Vashon that the Langley Gardens is going to be part of, August 1st I think, if you are interested and able at that time. And then of course there is the round up later on. My summer is starting to look good. Yipee!

katie59, I went to sorticulture too. I was there Friday at 11. Was surprised to see people already leaving with things they had bought! Found out that the vendors are allowed to sell to people who come early and many come between 8 and 9. Next year will get there earlier! Altho I got way out of control as it was and bought too many things. I shouldn't have gone!

mauryhill, I'm very interested in the Vashon farm tour. I'll have to google and see if I can find more info. I've never been to Vashon. Can I drive on or is that a ferry island?

mauryhill, I was just googling vashon farm tour and came across an article in a newspaper that indicated you could drive around to farms any day, buy from their farmstands, etc. I have my cousin's daughter visiting right now and she loves all things farming (very unusual little city girl). I'm taking her to the airport tomorrow and was thinking maybe we could go over there on the way, drive around to a few of the farms.

Wondering how your ferry is (read that yes, I need a ferry). Would I be able to show up at the ferry at 11:15 and make the 11:30 ferry? The article also indicated once I got off the ferry, there was a place to get ahold of a map to all the farms with addresses and directions. How easy is it to find that map?

Thanks!
Gwen