Part of being a good urban farmer is having the right tools for the different jobs in the garden. In this article, we’ll go over the basic gardening tools you should have and what they are used for.
Shovel
Shovels are used for digging, lifting and moving bulk materials like soil and sand. They typically have a broad blade attached to a sturdy handle. For gardening, the shovels used as also commonly referred to as spades, which typically have a sharp and triangular shaped tip. This is in contrast to snow shovels, coal shovels, and other types of shovels.
Spades are also commonly used for transplanting bushes and small trees. Usually the upper edge of the blade is treaded with rounded rests allowing the user to use their feet to drive the tool into the ground.
Choose a garden shovel with a study handle. The end of the handle may have a T-grip or O-grip for additional leverage. A spade with a narrow blade is good for digging through clay soil; a spade with a wider blade is good for digging through sand or loam soil.
No garden should be without a good shovel. Pick a good one – it should last you for many years to come.
Fork
Garden forks typically have a short handle with four short and sturdy tines at the end. They are used for loosening, lifting, and turning over the soil. They differ from shovels in that they can be pushed more easily into the ground.
Look for forks with stainless steel or carbon steel tines and a sturdy handle. Garden forks are different than pitch forks which are used for moving loose materials such as piled hay. We recommend all urban farmers to have a sturdy pitch fork. Not only will you find it useful for loosening compacted soil, you can use it for harvesting potatoes, turning your compost pile, and more.
Rake
Rakes are another versatile tool that consist of a toothed bar attached perpendicular to a sturdy handle. There are two main styles of rakes: a bow rake with short, hard tines arranged in a linear pattern and a leaf-rake with longer more flexible tines arranged in a folding-fan style.
Bow rakes (also called hard rakes) are used for spreading and levelling soil and small rocks. They can be used both with the tines facing downward with a pulling action (for finding and loosening clumps in the soil) and with the tines facing upward with either a pushing or pulling action (for levelling soil).
Leaf rakes (also called soft rakes) are used for gathering debris such as leaves, twigs and dead grass.
For vegetable gardens, we suggest a good quality hard rake. Look for ones with steel tines and a sturdy handle.
Hoe
Hoes are versatile tools in any garden. Hoes are used for moving small amounts of soil, chopping weeds in your vegetable garden, piling soil around the base of plants, and for creating narrow furrows (rows) for planting seeds and bulbs.
They come in a variety of styles and designs, with some serving a very specific purpose (ex. a collinear hoe has razor sharp blades to cut weeds along the surface of the soil) and other being more versatile in function like the Dutch hoe.
Choose a hoe with a longer handle to minimize the amount of bending needed to reach the soil. Hang hoes on a tool rack when not in use. If you find yourself with lots of weeds and don’t want to continually bend over to pull them out, a hoe will save you lots of time.
Hand Pruners (Secateurs)
Hand pruners are a staple for any maintenance work in your garden. They are used for harvesting, pruning back suckers and side branches, and cutting twine to a manageable size.
Choose a pair that has a bypass-style design, which cuts cleanly through plant material and allows cut stems to heal cleanly. Avoid choosing an anvil-style design, which can crush plant material and increase the chance of diseases to infect your plants.
Keep your hand shears maintained by sharpening the blades regularly and ensuring the nut that holds the two pieces together are properly tightened. This is where we want to stress that it pays to get a good quality pair of hand pruners. The time you’ll save, reduced hassle and inconvenience of a poor quality pair will make a big difference in how well and enjoyable working in your garden will be.
Two-Handed Shears (Loppers)
Two-Handed Shears, are used to prune small twigs and branches. They are typically used with two hands, which gives good leverage for cutting through hard wood or tough branches. Like with hand shears, look for an bypass style design rather than an anvil style design. This will allow for cleaner cuts and less chance of diseases to enter into the plant that is being pruned.
While loppers generally aren’t used as often in the garden as some of your other tools like hand shears, we do recommend investing in a good quality pair not only for your convenience and comfort, but for your plants health as well.
Trowel
Trowels are multi purpose gardening tools. They typically have a pointed and scoop-shaped metal tip attached to a short handle. They are used for breaking up clumps of dirt, transplanting seedlings, weeding and mixing in fertilizers.
Having a shovel, fork, rake, hoe, hand-pruners, two-handed shears, and trowel are what we consider to be the basic tools for any garden. We’ll be covering tips on other garden tools in future posts.
Cover Image by Jennifer C., used under its Creative Commons license.
so hand pruners are for the small manageable plants while shears are for the big ones, right?
Pruners generally refer to single hand tools and small manageable plants. Shears come in a range of sizes and generally refer to bigger tools though you can have pruners also referred to as hand shears.