Hello and a very warm welcome back to the Kellogg Garden Channel!
I'm your host, Resh Gala, a gardener from New Jersey growing zone 6b, and founder of Hundred
Tomatoes. I know spring is around the corner and most of you have already purchased all your
seeds and seed starting supplies, but have you invested in some good gardening tools to make
your gardening journey super easy and fun this year? Well, that's what I'm here to talk about.
In today's episode, I'm going to tell you all about the top essential tools that you will need,
that will make your gardening very, very easy. But before we get started, don't forget to hit
the subscribe button and the notification bell so you don't miss another great gardening video from
Kellogg Garden again. So, let's get started! So, one of the first most important tools you need to
invest in as a gardener is a shovel. Now, I have a mini shovel, but you can get a tall one too
if that's what you prefer, and the reason why you need a shovel is so that when you're starting out
your garden and you have tons of soil or compost to mix into your raised beds or to put it in.
It's going to help you dig from the wheelbarrow and shovel everything into your raised beds.
So, that's the number one tool. The second tool that you'll need to invest in
is a rake. Now, I have this kids rake, which is a very small
mini rake, and I really like it because I like to just gently
rake the soil to loosen it up. And, I also use it to add compost to my raised beds and gently
rake that in onto the top. Now, if you have dried leaves, or dead plant material as well,
a small, little, mini rake like this is perfect. But,
this is what I recommend. You can get a bigger rake, that's not a problem too. So, apart from
a shovel and a rake some of the essential tools that you'll need in your garden are a trouble
or a mini trouble, like this. And, I like this one because it's marked with the inches right here;
one, two, three, four, etcetera. So, you know how deep to dig into the ground when you're
planting your seedlings in spring. Now, obviously over here, let me show you, our ground is still
frozen because we're in Feb. and in the middle of winter, so I would not dig into frozen ground,
but when the ground thaws and it's easy to work in, you would basically push this into the ground
shovel out some of the soil and then put your seedlings right in. So, this is great for that.
It's also nice if you need to, you know, pull out some weeds it's a small little mini trouble,
so I like that. So, make sure you have a trouble and a mini trouble, also known as a spade.
One of the other tools is a hand rake which is nice if you have some trees and they cast their
debris, such as these dried leaves right here. It's nice to just, you know, pull everything aside
and clear up your soil. So, that's a hand rake. Now, this one right here is a cultivator. Now,
not many people have this but it's great to loosen up your soil especially when you're planting root
veggies like carrots, radishes, and beets, so this is a nice handy tool as well. And lastly,
this right here is a mini hoe which is good if you have a lot of weeds. You can get a
larger hoe as well if you don't want to bend as much, but because my raised beds are higher,
I like these mini tools very much. Now, apart from some of those essential tools, what you'll
really need when you're harvesting or taking off dead plant material are some pruners and clippers,
and what's great about these is that it has this lock right here, so it's quite safe to use and
if you have kids or if you're storing these tools away it keeps them safe that way. So,
let me show you how I'd use these pruners right here and clip off some of my dead kale plants.
So, I'm walking through the snow,
and as you can see, I had some kale that I had planted in containers
last year. But, they're pretty much done since they didn't get covered and we had severe,
severe snow. So, all I would do is, go to the base and use my pruners to sort of clip these away,
like this. And, while we are at it, I might as well prune the rest.
Now, if your plants are healthy you can obviously compost them. If not, make sure you put them in
a separate trash pile. Now, you can't talk about gardening tools without talking about a watering
can, right? I'm sure this is pretty obvious, most of you probably have one, a watering can
or some sort of a hose, so that's something. Make sure that you have a good quality one invested.
When it comes to watering cans though, I like ones that are super lightweight and not the metal ones
because those can get pretty hot in the summer when you have to hold them. So, get something
that's very lightweight so that you can water easily. This one's my favorite. So, apart from
some of the tools that I just mentioned, some of the other essentials that you must have as
a gardener are some gloves. Now, I have these by Nitrile and these are actually soft on one side
and waterproof on the other, so they're great. If you want to put your hands in the dirt and
dig in to the soil it's not a problem if you have some of these gloves on. Now, apart from gloves,
I always keep in my garden basket that I carry outside, some plant tags as well. You never know
if some are missing or they've gotten washed away in the rain,
what you've written the name of your plants. You always want to keep one handy and stick them into
the soil so you know what you're growing. Another thing is, always keep some sort of a hand towel
or a cleaning supply, like maybe a paper towel even if that's what you wish, handy. Because,
if your hands are dirty and you are then direct sowing something, you don't want to put your
hands with soil on them back inside you know into the packet of seeds, so having a little,
you know, towel handy is great to just wipe your hands and then head back inside the house.
Finally, don't forget to have a nice, little, cute harvest basket, because when summer comes and your
plants are in full bloom in production, then you want to have a nice hand a handy harvest basket
to carry all your goodies from the garden. One of the harvest baskets that I also like
is this one which is actually a cute, little, foldable one right here and it's lightweight.
Don't forget that when you're thinking about getting a harvest basket it should be lightweight,
because when you add all your produce inside it can get heavy pretty fast. So,
this is cute because it allows me to just simply fold it up and store it away.
So, apart from some of those essential tools that I mentioned, some of the optional ones which
will make your life super easy as a gardener; first one right here is this sprayer bottle,
one-gallon container, and it's fantastic for putting things like organic BT and some water
in it, and using it to spray away your cabbage moth caterpillars for example, that are eating
up and creating holes in your brassicas. So, as you can see, if I were to fill this up,
I would just pump it like that, and there's this little nozzle and help me spray on top of my
leaves and it's easy to get even on the underside of them. Now, some of these even come with a
little strap that you can, you know, throw on your shoulder so it's easy to move around with it when
this can get quite heavy. So, keep that in mind, but one of these little sprayers is amazing
and it's going to make your life super easy as a gardener. Now, apart from that, another thing that
I tend to use a lot in my garden, is this little powder puff bottle, and it's great for using
diatomaceous earth because you don't want to spray diatomaceous earth all around just randomly,
because like talcum powder it can you know create some kind of a problem with your lungs,
so you don't want to breathe that in. And, this has a very fine nozzle so it's great for just,
you know, gently spraying some diatomaceous earth, and all you have to do is basically,
push it like that. Now, the last absolutely optional tool, the one that I highly recommend,
is having a small little bench like the one that I'm sitting on right here. Now,
this one is fantastic because it also doubles up as a kneeling pad! So, when you're in the
ground or if you have, you know, your raised beds that are much shorter and you want to reach in
you can just lean into it and grab whatever you want. And, the great thing is this actually
even falls, mine is obviously in the snow, so I'll have to wipe it down before I do that,
but you can even turn it around, and if you're in the ground
you can kneel on it like this. So, it's fantastic. So, I hope you found these gardening tips helpful,
and if there are certain tools that are missing from your gardening toolbox, I hope you decide
to go out there and invest in them. Don't forget to mention in the comments down below, what are
your favorite tools? I'd love to learn. And, hit the subscribe button and the notification bell
to subscribe to the Kellogg Garden Channel and I hope to see you next time. Have a great day, bye!