Garden Tool Sets

Garden tool sets are a necessity for the success of your garden. Whether a gardener is a novice and looking to grow a few plants or whether they are experienced and expanding an established garden, the proper tools are necessary and will be appreciated.

Garden tools come in a wide range of costs and sizes with a large variety of function and purpose. As with any task, the proper tool for the job, makes that job much easier. Here are some of the different things to look for in terms of cost and quality in your garden tools.

Features To Look For In A Sturdy Garden Tool

Some simple starter garden tool sets have the bare minimum of three tools, while the high end offering is often a set of more than twelve to fifteen different tools. You'll find that the price will vary some with the number of tools, but if you start with a goal or target price in mind it will help you narrow the selection quickly.

Look at the handles of the tools, this will give some sense of the quality of the set you are looking at. Tools that come with plastic handles often come with other cheaply made features, the use of stamped tines on a fork is another example. One popular style include wooden handle tools, as they feel good in your hands and will usually last quite a while. Some of these tools come with modern foams and other sculpted handles which can feel like they are shaped to the hand and are great for older gardeners or those who have chronic joint pains. Silicon handles are the current popular choice. By the way, every notice most tools come with brightly colored handles? This is so when you put the tool down, you can easily spot it in a sea of green grass or spot of soil - an almost necessary feature.

The tools that come with a garden set vary, but there are a few included in almost all sets. One is the garden trowel. This resembles a small spade or shovel, and is used for many chores like transplanting a small vegetable, adding fertilizer to the area, or harvesting onions and garlic. Check that this is not made from thin stamped steel, as it will easily bend and break if used under a decent amount of pressure.

A garden fork, sometimes known as a cultivator, has hooked tines on it and is used to work the surface of the soil. Handy for weeding a small area, it can also be used to prepare a garden bed for smaller seeds like radishes or carrots as opposed to a hoe.

Pruners are a necessary tool in a set. Most often the pruner included in a garden tool set is a bypass pruner, as these are better suited for smaller jobs like cutting flowers, cutting small dead plant branches, and pruning vegetables. We have one of these in all three of our tool locations since we use it very often on items other than the garden.

A garden tool set will come with a variety of holders or cases. There are plastic holders, leather holsters, canvas bags, cases with molds for tool placement, or the very high end cases will be made of wood themselves.

Another alternative is an all-in-one tool like the Leatherman garden tool. These include several tools in one neatly folded up package and store in a belt holster. You cannot get more versatile than this tool.

Finally, a lawn garden cart is functional for ease of operations. Often these are a blessing for some older gardeners, who find they can't do as much carrying, bending, and stooping as they once could. Some come with a seat on the top that is ideal for sitting on and working on the garden.

Methods of Watering

OK, so now you've planted using your new tools and you have to chose the best way to keep your garden watered. Your home may have a sprinkler system that is in the ground and programmed to come on automatically on a cadence you set. If you don't have that luxury, you will have to find a watering method that works for you. The good old-fashioned way of watering by hand can be a form of therapy. Setting out the sprinkler and moving it around your yard is the traditional way to water (before watering systems!). In either of the latter two cases, you will need a good hose and watering wand. We also recommend a nice storage container for the hose, or reel. Much better than coiling the hose up on the ground somewhere, because - and we've had this happen - some other living creature may like to "coil up" near your coiled up hose!

Advice from "The Lawn Whisperer"

The experts say that watering twice a week is much better than watering every day or every other day for say 10-15 minutes a day. They also suggest increments of 10-15 minutes, a stoppage time, then another 10-15 minutes in the same spot. The alternative is watering daily or every other day and your grass will always search for more and tends to have a shallow root system. With the twice-a-week schedule, your grass gets in a cadence and grows deeper roots.

Extreme Drought

We experienced this first hand in the summer of 2011 when North Central Texas had a record drought and 71 days of 100 degree days or higher. We had our system on two days a week. About mid-July it went to mandatory two days a week watering between certain hours of the day. Our lawn suffered no ill effects because we were already watering on this schedule but it was very sad to see other's bushes, trees, and lawns decline and then die out because of changing the frequency of watering.

Water Restrictions

Make sure you follow the water restrictions for your town or area. Especially if you live in a drought prone part of the country. We are currently in Stage 1 restriction but some of the surrounding areas are in Stage 3. It's important to comply to these rules for the sake of one of our most precious resources - water. Check to see if your county has a regional water district. They give advice on watering and offer other services such as coming out and checking your automatic system for optimum operation.

Watering Wand

While a hose and reel cart are standard fare, I have found that a watering wand is versatile for hand watering. They come with a variety of water release methods (i.e., angle, shower, spray, etc.) and are perfect for watering hanging baskets, bird baths, containers, and hand-watering dry spots.

You will come to know which tools become your favorite, which tools you need more than one of, which tools you can do without but probably not until you try several you didn't need to buy. When I see tools at yard sales, I scoop them up for this exact reason. Happy Gardening!