Hello Gardening friends, welcome to Backyard Basics, I'm John Dromgoole.
There are a lot of new gardeners out there so I wanna explain a few things that you need
to do to get ready for gardening.
You need a good hat, a good pair of gloves, some sunscreen, and a nice watering can.
There are a lot of those out there.
You know, garage sales are a good place to find these things.
And so there's what you need.
You need a good trowel, a good trowel is very important.
This one is welded right here, so its going to last a long time.
And look at the thickness of the blade, that is very important.
Some of these are hand made, and those are the ones that cost a little bit more.
And the other ones are pressed out of a piece of steel and formed and that's about it, not
a lot of strength to them.
One of my favorites are these stainless steel types right here.
These clean up very easily, and I like them a lot.
They do a very good job cutting, they have a sharp edge.
And this is one I'm really comfortable with, but I started with that one.
Here'[s another little digging device for the garden, just to work your way though the
soil.
You just flip the soil and work it.
You can make a groove for seeds, very simple stuff.
If you're kinda interested in something like this, this is a hori-hori, a Japanese tool
that has a sharp edge and a serrated edge with a sharp point on it just to work in the
garden.
It does a very good job and you'll figure out what its for, including taking up weeds.
There is an assortment of different tools that will allow you to get in there and do
some trimming.
This is one of them right here.
These are a little expensive, this is a felco, but you can find some to start with that are
inexpensive and if you take care of them, they last a long time.
Here's one that is a little bit bigger.
And you can also even get longer handled ones for getting into a shrub and doing some work
that way.
But get a good one.
Its worth it.
You will buy several of the other types that are inexpensive by the time you did that you'll
have paid for one of these nicer ones.
But starting out you wanna save some money.
One of the things you're going to see are different types of handles.
There are the straight handles, that's the one that we see a lot on a long handle.
You can get a lot more leverage whether you're using your cultivator or your shovel, it doesn't
make any difference, you get a lot of leverage when you're using one of those.
Then, I like the t handle and the d handle.
That's what these are.
The t handle is very comfortable for me, I like to use it for driving the shovel into
the soil or a garden fork, this is a really nice one.
But this is even stronger, this has a piece of metal on it, and gives it a lot of strength.
And so a lot of folks like this one.
And once again, turning this into compost or fertilizer, you got something to use to
twist it in there.
That is a good way to incorporate it into the top four inches of the soil.
You know, I'm showing you these good ones.
These are mine and I've had a lot of time to use them, they are many years old.
But here is one that is kinda new.
The gardener hasn't it that long, the label is still on it.
And right off the bat, in a few days here comes the fork.
It just fell right out of there.
And so this is a problem.
And they also bend.
People tend to use them for taking up rocks or roots and its not for that.
Its just for working in the soil and getting it nice and deep.
Double digging is a technique that you out to look up, it's a very effective one.
So what you see here is a new tool already broken.
The wood in there has stretched as they used it and pretty soon it comes loose.
If this happens to one of your tools, you can put it back together.
Put some super glue in there and drive it in and hammer it down in there once again
and it will work one more time.
But it does tend to loosen the wood up and come right on out of there.
So quality is what we are looking for.
Quality is what you can pass these tools on to your grandchildren and it will stay in
the family for many many years when you get a good one.
And I like to do it that way.
But I know a lot of you don't have enough money or your not sure if you wanna be a gardener
for very long.
So you might wanna look for the inexpensive ones, try them out, and if you like gardening,
which I know you will, you're going to want a very nice tool for yourself.
So its easy, get some good tools and that will make gardening a lot more effective.
For Backyard Basics, I'm John Dromgoole.
I'll see ya next time.