It's the first week of January in Zone 6, and while there's not a whole lot to do outside in
the garden, there is a whole lot of planning that can be done this time of year. One of the
important winter gardening tasks is to consider your tools. So take inventory-- see what you have,
see what you need, make sure that everything is sharpened and greased and taken care of and ready
to go for the spring. So on that note I thought I'd share with you today my top three gardening
tools that I use the most in my own garden. And stick around to the end for an added bonus!
Now the first tool that I wanted to share is a new one that I got at the start of 20,
the 2020 gardening season and it's just a tiny little guy. I was not sure if I was going to
end up liking this because it felt kind of flimsy when I first got it. But I use this all the time.
The thing that I found was that because it's so small and lightweight this is really easy to slip
into your pocket and have with you all the time and it is more handy in the garden than my standby
pocket knife. So this I found myself using for pruning, for trimming, for harvesting, and its
small size belies its strength. This thing can actually cut through fairly thick, I'd say about
a quarter of an inch slightly woody annual... so say like a pepper where they get those thick stems
and they're pretty woody, this could cut through that fairly easily. It's also really ergonomically
friendly, so you slide your fingers in those little holes and then your thumb works the cutting
mechanism. And it has this little clasp you can shut so that it stays closed when it's not in use.
Now my second favorite gardening tool, and these are in no particular order, I love them all
equally, I've used for many years and it's been a favorite since the first time I picked one up. And
a friend of mine at the old farm I used to work at had one of these and let me borrow his and
I was using it so often I was like 'I better just go get one myself'. When I was introduced to this
it was as a Korean hand hoe but you will actually see them sold with a lot of different names.
Now the beauty of this tool is really when it is utilized for transplanting,
at least that's what I find myself using it for all the time. The way that this blade is shaped
makes it perfect for digging transplant holes especially in heavy soil. So if you've seen some
of my other videos you may know that I am dealing with heavy clay soil here where I'm gardening
and this pointed end just cuts through that soil like nothing. It also, with the way that this is
curved, makes it really easy to dig a transplant hole and then pull your fill dirt back in kind
of in one fell swoop, so it makes the job really quick and easy. It also works great for weeding
and just working small areas of soil, I'm sure there are other applications for it but that's
how I use it all the time. And I will say until I found this tool I loved my gardening knife and was
using it for the same purpose but I actually found that I favored this one much more . Plus I had a
few incidents where I sliced open my fingers with the with the gardening knife and this
one's just a smidge safer... although do not run this pointed end into your foot, really painful.
So my third most loved garden tool is this orange behemoth. When my husband first brought this home
I was like 'we do not need this. We have wheelbarrows, we have wagons,
we have trailers, like we just don't need another thing.' And it was relatively spendy. I was wrong.
Don't tell him that. But I use this wagon more than any of those other things combined.
It is so durable, it can hold such heavy loads and it's just useful for everything. We put our
hay mulch in it, I put my harvests in it when I have a lot of things to carry up to the house,
just supplies, equipment, pretty much anything you can imagine is super easy to haul in this thing.
And when you have to dump it it's a little more cumbersome than a wheelbarrow
but it's relatively lightweight for its size so you can just pick it up and tip it over. Plus,
I don't have one yet, but they do sell inserts for this so you can pop one of those inserts in
and hold things that are a really fine consistency that would otherwise fall through the mesh grate
of this wagon. It's also really great for hauling kids around if that's something you need to do,
which is a little tricky with a wheelbarrow. And as promised my bonus garden tool! This is not one
that I use as frequently but I have found this to be very very valuable in particular in dealing
with my clay soil. This is a broad fork and this is one that my brother-in-law who is a welder
actually made. And in the journey to improve my soil using as little soil disruption as possible
this has been really really useful. So in the past I would traditionally till my ground when
prepping a garden and I found that that actually is causing more problems than it is helping.
But I still felt like with my heavy soil I needed something to kind of aerate and
open up that soil structure a little. Now I'm using a lot of different methods in combination,
but this broad fork really does achieve that-- it loosens up the soil, it aerates the soil with
minimal disruption to things like earthworms and the microorganisms that are living in the soil.
Now it certainly is a little more work than just whipping out the tiller. But it is good
for your garden and it's good for you too! So those are my must-have garden tools. But
I'd love to hear from you-- do you have a garden tool or tools that you cannot live
without? Let me know in the comments below. And if you find content like this helpful please consider
subscribing to my channel Growfully with Jenna. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time!