The Top 5 Garden Tools For Your Vegetable Garden


by Dave Truman - Date: 2007-04-12 - Word Count: 428 Share This!

When I was a child, I used to love going out with my Dad and puttering around in the garden. There were always lots of cool tools to play with. Shovels, rakes, forks - all great fun for a young boy in the dirt! Now that I'm grown up, I should probably have grown out of that but those garden tools are still lots of fun...

There are hundreds of different garden tools, a fact that a visit to your local garden center will confirm. There are many different prices as well and the trick is to know what you need to buy without going overboard and spending a fortune.

The first tool you'll need is a spading fork. This tool looks like a pitchfork, but the handle is shorter and the tines of the fork are spaced wider apart. This tool will be used to dig into hard soil and loosen it up to prepare for planting.

Once you've loosened the soil in your garden, you'll need a hoe. This tool is one of the best for preparing the surface of your garden, allowing nutrients and water to get into the ground. A round-ended shovel is another tool that is useful for preparing your garden for planting.

Of course, water is one of the most important things to any garden. As such, you'll need tools to make sure that you can get a consistent water supply to your garden when there is no rain. This means either a hose or a watering can, depending on the size of your garden.

A watering can is helpful for the early days of your garden as it's easier to control the amount of water - especially if you get one with a removable "shower" head. When you first plant your seeds or plants, you don't want to use too much water pressure until they have established themselves.

A bow rake is a good tool for leveling the surface of your garden before planting. The tines on one side of the rake will help remove any larger lumps of soil while the flat side is perfect for leveling and smoothing it for planting.

A quality set of garden shears is important for maintaining your plants. Cheap shears often lose their edge faster, and may not make clean cuts. You'll need these for trimming throughout the season, so don't skimp on your cutters.

These five tools are the most important ones that you'll use to plant and maintain your garden. There are plenty of others that may tempt you, but if you stick to these 5 your garden will do just fine.


Related Tags: vegetable gardening, garden tools, garden planning, growing vegetables, planting seeds

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For more helpful advice about growing vegetables in your own garden and to receive your free copies of our 3 special reports on Composting, Mulching and Pest Control, visit http://www.vegetablegardeners.com

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