Do you keep your tools properly maintained and cleaned? I have to admit that I'm not very good
at that, so I've come to talk to Dan of Dan Cooper Garden, about how to keep your garden
tools clean and well maintained so that they last longer and work better. It's Alexandra here from
The Middle-Sized Garden YouTube channel and blog. So Dan, why do we need to clean and maintain our
tools, because I feel rather guilty that I just don't do enough cleaning and maintaining of tools.
So what am I risking? Well, you are not alone, because most of us don't clean and maintain our
tools as often as we could. I think all you're risking is the longevity of your tools really,
so cleaning often, little and often as well, will really help them to last longer. And most tools
are designed to pretty much last a lifetime if you look after them properly. So let's start with
those essential tools: the forks and the trowels, the spades. Yes. How about those - what do I need
to do with those? So the absolute enemy of tools is water, and being wet, because that causes
wood handles to swell up, and it also causes rust. So the number one thing that you must
never do - which I suspect most people do do - is leave your tools outside. Don't do that. That will
get rid of half of your problems and make tool maintenance a lot easier. If you have been outside
using your tools on a wet day, and they're all clogged, then the best thing to do is hose them
down, or use a watering can, to just remove the excess soil. So I'm using a watering can here, but
you would literally just wash them off, and then I keep old towels, old rags, and use that just to
wipe away any dirt. And it's absolutely imperative that they're dry when you put them away - both the
handles and the blades of them. And that's really all you would need to do with it all, that was
wet, just come in from the garden. Best thing to do with tools is always store them hanging
up. So put a little leather cord through there, or some string, and hang them up - that means the air
will circulate around them. If you have tools that you know you're not going to use for a long time,
so if you you'd like to put your garden away for the winter, then the magic stuff is WD-40,
because WD-40 will displace any moisture left on them. So you just spray a little bit of that on,
and then you can wipe it in, if you like, and that just creates a sort of invisible layer over the
metal. And that will stop any rust forming over the winter. When you get back out in the garden
in spring, it'll be perfectly well protected. If you've got tools like this one, where I brought
this in from the garden, I haven't hosed it off, and it's become dry, then this is a special tool
cleaning brush. This has got a bit here at the end which just helps to get that really sort of dried
stuff off there - really nicely scrapes that off. And then you use the bristles of the brush to get
rid of what's left. And you just might have to work away a little bit harder than that,
than if you have a hose, but just keep going. If there's a little bit of rust on there,
you can use one of two things. This is for cleaning a barbecue, but you can use any sort of
scaring pads that's quite bristly. And again you can use that to really get in there. It's usually
got some nice corners so you can use that to get any more dried stuff off. But if you've got rust
which will be more persistent, than a wire brush like this one will just help to get the rust off,
and then the process is the same as it was for that other tool. You want to dry off any moisture,
like that, and then if you're worried about more rust forming, a bit of WD-40 wiped over the blades
and Bob's your Uncle. With a copper tool like this one, if you want to get it back to that nice
sort of finish, then I would recommend using steel wool. You can use the finer grades of steel wool,
they're better for that, and that will just return it to its nice bright shiny copper finish.
The one thing with copper of course is that that doesn't rust, so you don't need to worry so much
about oiling it. Presumably with this thing that you say, this barbecue wire wool, could
we use the sort of wire wool that we have in the kitchen? Yes, you could. I would avoid using any,
unless you have got rust, I wouldn't use anything metallic, because it will scratch, and if you
have any tools that have quite a bright finish, or you want to sort of don't want to see the scratch
marks, then this is a nylon, So this won't leave those sort of marks. If you've got sturdy tool
handles, or if you just feel like you'd like to bring them back again, a little bit of sandpaper
on them will just return them to normal. And then you can use something like camellia oil, again
just to add a bit of moisture back, because as they get older they can crack and dry out a little
bit. And of course what I find with secateurs is that if you don't maintain them a bit,
they get sort of rather stiff, and they're harder to cut, and then the cuts aren't as good. So with
secateurs it really is quite important to maintain them isn't it? It's very important, and actually
a secateur manufacturer would tell you that you should look after them sort of once a week. It
does really very much depend how often you're going to use them, and a professional gardener
would definitely be maintaining their secateurs every week. So the point of cleaning them is not
about aesthetics, it's about how effective they are to use. And also putting less strain on you,
because the more gung stuff and mucky they get the harder they are to use - the more pressure you're
going to have to apply to cut through anything. So if they're clean and sharp they're just
going to be a lot easier to use. I have got a few different ones here. So I've got a pair of snips -
I'm just going to talk very briefly about those - because these snips have a little spring in them,
which I'm just going to put my hands in here. This is not water - this is white vinegar. So these
have the little spring in them, and these springs can very easily get lost, and they can very easily
rust. And this one has been quite rusty. And I've put it in white vinegar, because I try not to use
lots of chemicals for this. You really don't need a lot of stuff to clean tools. It's probably all
things you've got in the home, vinegar being one of them. So this little spring has been in some
white vinegar for a couple of hours, and you can see already from my fingers what has happened,
is that all the rust and muck, there you are, wiping it on my hand, that is all coming off
because of the vinegar. That's only been in there a couple of hours, actually since you've been
here. So this is the second most useful thing - old toothbrushes - for any tool cleaning or apps
that you bring in. So just put that in a little bit more white vinegar and give it a good brush
off. It'll get into all the nooks and crannies, and you will be surprised how much rust comes off,
that is actually, and if you can see starting - there's a little bit of brightness appearing.
So that's already much more nice and springy. I would put a little bit of WD-40 on there,
before well, that's lovely now. And then that can go back into here. It fits nicely on those posts,
and all of a sudden, here you are, that should be a lot easier,
so those are moving really nicely now. Let's have a little go. So there.....brilliant.....yes,
nice and springy again. This sort of patina, that they've got on them, doesn't necessarily mean
that they are dirty. You can spend a lot of time cleaning them back to their sort of shiny factory
settings. That's not actually necessary. What you want is for them to be moving freely. Just make
sure every time you do anything with tools, that you dry them off properly afterwards, so that you
don't leave any residue on there, but we can leave them in there. These secateurs, believe it or not,
were brand new at the weekend, and I mucked them up especially for you by pruning my star jasmine,
which is notorious for having lots of sap. So I have got here what is called a crean mate - so
that is a a sap eraser - and I've got some camellia oil. And what I'm going to do is put
a few drops of camellia oil on this crean mate. So all you do is, that's dampened with the oil, and
you use it like this to rub away at all that nasty sap that's got stuck on there. It really is very
sticky. And you want to pay lots of attention, especially to getting around the nuts and bolts,
and that sap will just come away. And then always have rags around, because you can wipe that away.
One thing I should mention is never undo these nuts and bolt, unless you absolutely have to,
because when they're assembled, secateurs are balanced really well by the factory - they're
balanced so that they work nicely - and if you undo that, you can completely change the way that
they work. You'll find that people like Felco and Niwaki will offer sharpening services, and
I would recommend those, if for example if you've dropped them, there's been some sort of twisting,
or if you've cut through wire or metal, and you've left yourself with a very big dent in the blade.
So wipe away all the debris, that will take you a little while to get all of that off. And then
once you've finished, then apply a little bit more camellia oil and it just coats the blades
nicely. Not everyone will have one of these sap erasers, and if you don't there are other things
you can use. So again wire wool is pretty good at getting - you know - even quite bad rust and
sap off things, so you could use wire wool. You can hear just how creaky those are. They
definitely need oiling. And the other thing which I'm a massive fan of, which people will
have probably around the house, is some sort of abrasive cleaner. So this is completely natural,
like a cleaning paste - it's got a lovely minty smell. Again pop a bit of that on a
piece of kitchen towel or a cloth, and probably a little bit of moisture - we can get a bit from
there - and again you can rub that in, and slowly but surely you can see that the muck is coming off
them. But again that's something that you might have around the house if you don't want to sort
of invest in all of the other paraphernalia. So that's like a kitchen or bathroom abrasive that
you might be using for your taps or something like that? Exactly, and that's perfectly good. I really
really try and avoid using anything chemical. And the the only thing I would say about,
particularly cleaning any sort of pruning gear, is that you should disinfect them every so often,
because a lot of plant diseases are transferred by sap. So things like phytophthora,
which you know is pretty nasty. So I would use a little bit of bleach diluted in some water to
do that. Just dip the blades in and dry them off - or you can use any sort of disinfectant
spray - but I really really try to avoid as much as possible using anything that's sort
of nasty for the environment. What you should do each time as well is sharpen them. It's not
technically cleaning, but you may as well be doing it at the same time. And I've got two things for
that. This is a sharpening stone. It's got a nice little curve on the bottom, which means
that that gives you the edge that you need. So it's already sort of formatted, if you like,
to be able to do it, and you would just run that round very gently the blades like that, wet, you
need to do that two or three times, and you'll get the blade back. If you aren't confident with that,
this is actually a Felco gadget. But this little gadget is specially angled again to sharpen the
blade. So it's been set already - the right angle - and you can run that along the blades as well.
I think a lot of sharpening blades is about getting that angle absolutely right. And with,
by using a stone that's specifically designed for secateurs, that you've got the angle correct.
There are more really essential things you need to know about gardening techniques in the gardening
tips and techniques playlist at the end of this video. And thank you for watching. Goodbye!