You don’t need to have all the tools in the world to start your gardening journey. Many people will try to sell you ridiculous gadgets with unnecessary add ons that might be helpful to a specific type of plant or garden, but not to the everyday gardener.
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Here Are Eight Must-Have Gardening Tools
You don’t need all of those gizmos to start you off; instead, you should be looking at these 8 tools below. These are the basic gardening tools you’ll need to start your gardening adventure the safe way.
1. Garden Kneelers and Seats
You’re going to spend most of your time on your hands and knees in the dirt, which means putting a lot of pressure on your delicate knee caps. It doesn’t matter if you’re 80 or 20; that type of constant pressure will start to wear you down.
To stop yourself from getting injured, you should buy a garden kneeler or a seat. These come in various shapes and sizes. Some are just a long patch of foam material that you can place on the floor and kneel onto to give your knees a supporting surface. Others have metal frames and handlebars to help you get up with ease.
If you choose one with a handlebar, you can add a hanger and create an easy-to-find location for your hand shovel, rake, and pitching fork.
2. Leather Gardening Gloves
In general, there are four types of gloves you can use for gardening; they are cloth, rubber-coated, neoprene (or nitrile), and leather.
Cloth gloves are the cheapest and most common. They are easy to wash and are cool and breathable, so your fingers won’t get sweaty. They are also great for the environment! But these types of gloves give you very little protection from thorns and splinters.
Rubber-coated gloves are excellent at protecting you from sharp materials like thorns and splitters. They are also fantastic against harsh chemicals like pesticides. But rubber isn’t breathable, which means your hands will get sweaty and hot pretty quickly, making your gardening experience uncomfortable. They are also harder to recycle than cloth gloves.
Neoprene (or Nitrile) gloves are what most top-class gardeners wear, but they aren’t our favorite. They are made from synthetic rubber, which is even harder to recycle. But just like natural rubber, they are great at protecting you from chemicals and thrones. Their synthetic nature makes them more breathable and flexible too. To make the gloves breathable, they had to make them less durable, which means that tough thrones can still pierce through them.
Leather gloves are the best option for any gardener, as long as you have the money for them. Waxed leather gloves are waterproof and have a natural resistance to spikes and thorns. In fact, gloves made specifically for thorn-covered roses are almost always made out of leather. These gloves are also breathable and thick enough to protect you from pesticides. Their only downfall is their price.
3. Wheelbarrow
Whether you’re traveling the garden waste to your compost heap or to your council bin, using a wheelbarrow will make the experience easier.
Even if you are walking the new flowers from the front of the house to the back garden, this type of equipment can make the trip faster and save you from back pain.
In our opinion, anything that makes your hobbies easier and less painful is a great tool. However, some people looking at this article might think that they haven’t got enough space for a wheelbarrow. Well, we have something to help you with that too.
Standard wheelbarrows have plastic bases and metal frames, but these aren’t the only types of wheelbarrows you can use. “Narrow Barrows” have become increasingly popular. They are narrow wheelbarrows that are perfect for allotments or small gardens that haven’t got a lot of storage space. They can still help you carry large weights but are easier to pack into your crowded shed.
If you need help looking for a narrow barrow, click here.
4. Stainless Steel Garden Tool Set
There are many garden tool sets to choose from, but you shouldn’t choose anything from a plastic collection. Plastic tools will break after a handful of uses, and in a world where we need to be held accountable for our plastic consumption, constantly buying these cheap tools is not worth it.
Instead, stainless steel tool sets will last you a lifetime, and if they do break, you can recycle them.
When you buy a set for a hand shovel, hand rank, and hand fork, try to pick one with a measuring edge. These types of tools make visualizing the depth of your seedlings easier. You can also do the job with just one tool in your hand instead of balancing a couple to make sure you get the depth right.
5. Cushion-Handled Pruning Shears
Pruning can be super tiring for your hands. Even if you are only tackling one bush a day, the pressure you need to exert to snip away at the plant is surprisingly high. This problem is even worse for people with arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, or anything else that hinders their movement.
Even if you don’t have a medical condition, you should always buy on the side of comfort. This is why we suggest you purchase a set of cushion-handled pruning shears. They will reduce the pressure on the heel of your plan and can help rotate the handles without wearing down your wrists.
6. Circle-Handled Shovels
Following the same thought, as the cushion-handled pruning shears, circle-handled shovels have been designed for comfort and ease. They are often built with rubbery handles which hold firm against the force of your weight but give you some bounce for comfort.
As the handle is in the shape of a circle, you will have better leverage to move the dirt and more control over how the shovel rotates. This means that the overall experience will be easier when compared to a flat handle.
7. Lightweight Hedge Trimmers
Using hedge trimmers can be super hard on your biceps. Holding up the trimmer while you reach for the tall or far-back places of your hedge can be dangerous. Even if you use a ladder to get you in the right position, the weight of the trimmer alone could cause your arms to buckle.
Instead, you should aim for a lightweight trimmer. Yes, they might not be as strong, but if you only have a small garden or a small hedge, then you won’t need the industrial hedge cutters to hack at your plants.
Ideally, you should aim for a wireless or cordless version too. This way, you can move the trimmer in a way that feels natural to your body and not restricted.
8. Stand-Up Weeder
Most of our must-have gardening tools have been chosen because of their safety and comfort features, and for number 8 we aren’t going to change this progression. A stand-up weeder does exactly what the name suggests. It allows you to keep standing as you de-weed your garden. The contraption has a long stick with four serrated claws at the end, along with a pedal. You put the claws around the weed and step on the pedal, which yanks up the plant and captures it!
This means no backache, no fuss, and no overly complicated workarounds: just place, step, and discard.
Summary
The best gardening tools are the ones that allow you to continue doing your hobby without harming your wearing you down. Buying these tools will help you stay comfortable and healthy as you utilize the space around you and create a beautiful garden.
