Cultivating Tools in Gardening

Every gardener needs at least a few cultivating tools so that he can create a good, healthy and beautiful garden.

• Spade is the first tool that comes to mind.
• Number 2, which is the average size, is the easiest one to use for long periods of time without getting fatigued.
• A fork of average size and weight is a handy tool.
• The Dutch hoe is the most useful for use among flowering plants and vegetables. An advantage of the Dutch how is that one walks backwards as one hoes, so the cultivated ground is not walked on.
• The draw hoe is excellent for working heavy ground.The drag hoe is useful particularly in your vegetable patch. This hoe is useful for making neat holes for sowing seeds, and earthing up potatoes among its many uses.
• The rake is a very essential tool. The leaf rake is useful in raking up the leaves and for gently raking soil over newly planted seeds and turf.

• The teeth garden rake is used to clear up stones, and other debris.
• The spreader, both rotary and drop are useful not only in seeding, but also in fertilizer application.
• A garden liner made from strong twine and 2 pieces of sticks is useful in marking out the areas where you want to grow some particular flowering plant or vegetable. A liner is useful in marking out the boundaries of your lawn.
• A dibber or dibble is a pointed wooden sick which is used for making holes in the ground. This comes in handy during seeding, and when planting seedlings or small bulbs. Dibbers come in various designs.
• Secateurs are a must for pruning.
• Also for pruning shrubs and small trees, long-handled pruners are invaluable. Shears help in keeping hedges in shape and a hand saw comes in very handy to cut off branches that are not required.
• Hand trowels with a blade width of 3 ¼ to 3 ½ inches loosen the dirt in a garden and if you have one with a 2 inch blade, it helps while transplanting.
• Aerators are a must. With their spiked discs and long handles they are used for cutting through hard soil, and for loosening and breaking up dirt several inches below the surface of the soil. Long (4 feet) or short (12 inches) cultivators with 3 or 4 sharp tines are good for breaking up clod of earth or aerating.
• Heavier work would require a rotary cultivator with sharp spurs. Other than these tools, there are the bulb planters, garden seeders and dandelion diggers.