Skip navigation

• Sustainable Techniques
• Garden Design
• Great Plants
• Gardening for Wildlife
• Wildflower Gardening
• Kitchen Gardening
• Indoor Gardening
• Children's Gardening
• Essays and Opinions
• Book Reviews
• Urban Gardening
• Garden Botany
• Ecology for Gardeners
• Plant Conservation
• Pest Alerts!
• GreenBridge
  Community Horticulture

Home » Gardening Information » Sustainable Techniques

Basic Tools for Home Gardeners

One of the best parts of any new undertaking is amassing the equipment. Think about what's required to take up bike riding these days. There's the shirt (with logo), the black shorts, the shoes, the gloves, the helmet, and the rain gear—and that's just to outfit you. Then there's the $3,500 bicycle and its accessories, the mirror, the saddlebags, the rack, the drink bottle, the odometer...

Gardening isn't any different. Faced with so much good-looking equipment in stores and catalogs, it's easy to believe that you need it all. So take the advice of a middle-aged gardener who has a shed full of tools that do nothing but take up room. Go slow. Be timid. Start with the basics, the implements for digging, cultivating, raking, and carrying. Two years from now the dandelion digger with "magic fingers" that looked indispensable in the store will be gathering dust while your shovel will be bright from constant use.

In fact, it takes only a few tools to make a small garden, so don't skimp on quality. Buy the best you can afford. By "the best" I don't mean a $180 English spade manufactured by a company with an appointment to Her Majesty the Queen. But do purchase well-made tools and equipment that will be worth passing down to grandchildren years after you've sown your last seed, or your last wild oat, whichever comes later. Labels like "professional grade," "nursery grade," and "construction grade" typically mean "better grade," so watch for them.

Digging

Digging is usually the gardener's maiden voyage, and a digging tool should probably be your first purchase. There are three basic choices—shovel, spade, and garden fork—and you can start with just one. But realize now that before long you'll want one of each.

Each of these three is made with either a long handle or a short handle ending in a YD- or T-shaped grip. Long handles give you more leverage, but they're also easier to break when you try to pry boulders or old Chevy engines out of your asparagus bed, and they require more upper body strength. If you choose a short-handled model—my favorite design because it's strong and easier to control—be sure that the top of the handle comes to your waist when the blade is sunk in the ground. Any shorter and you'll need more than a shower after a morning in the garden. (For the record, a folk remedy for lower back pain is a hot poultice of birch leaves, bark, and catkins.)

Whether shovel, spade, or fork, it should have a flat lip, or tread, on the top of the blade to protect your feet. Tool heads should be made from 14- or 15-gauge tempered high-carbon steel, not stainless steel, and the blade should be attached to the handle with a solid-socket or solid-strap connection. A hardwood handle is fine—don't spend extra on fiberglass or steel unless you're double-digging eight hours a day (see Introduction: Choosing the Right Tool for the Job for the basics of tool quality).

Shovels

A shovel, which has a slightly concave blade with a rounded bottom edge, or point, is the American digging tool, and it would be my first choice. The blade, or head, of a shovel is attached to the handle at a slight angle, a design for digging as well as turning, scooping, and moving soil, sand, gravel, compost, and other materials without destroying your back.

There's an array of head sizes and shapes, but the standard is the common, or round-point, shovel, which weighs between 5 and 6 pounds; its head measures about 8 x 12 inches. If a shovel feels too heavy or large—remember you have to lift what the head holds—choose a smaller version. The head of a floral shovel is smaller, about 7 x 9.5 inches, and is easier to maneuver in close quarters yet plenty big enough for general garden work. Smaller still is a border shovel, its 6 x 8-inch head perfect for digging small transplant holes. Square-point shovels (a flat-bottomed model intended for shoveling loose materials, not digging) and trenching and drain shovels (with long, narrow heads designed for ditching) are made primarily for construction jobs, not for gardening. $35 to $75.

Spades

The garden spade is the classic English digging tool (the name comes from spada, Latin for "blade"). It has a nearly flat, rectangular blade, a straight or very slightly curved bottom edge, and a short handle capped with a YD- or T-shaped grip. It's terrific for digging, removing sod, cutting through roots, edging, and trenching. It's less good for turning soil or scooping. Standard spades weigh 5 to 6 pounds and have blades that measure about 7 x 11 inches.

There are also spades with narrow blades for trenching and ones with smaller heads (5.5 x 9 inches) for small hands and muscles that are known as ladies' and border spades. Whatever the size, be sure yours is made of heavy, tempered steel, has treads to protect your feet, and has a hardwood handle at least 28 inches long that's connected to the blade with a solid-strap joint. And keep it sharp. $45 to $75.

Forks

Garden, or spading, forks, which are spades with tines rather than a blade, are made for turning and aerating the soil and for digging perennials and root crops—not for making holes. Despite their limitations, I wouldn't be without one. Nearly all garden forks are short-handled (about 30 inches with a YD grip), have four 10- to 12-inch flat tines, and weigh about 5 pounds.

Look for a fork with a head no wider than 7 or 8 inches—wider models are awkward to control—and stay away from the English pattern fork, which has square tines and usually is lead-heavy, or from forks with round or slimmed-down tines. Tines are easily bent, so the fork head should be made of heavy-gauge tempered steel. Border forks are downsized garden forks, good for smaller gardeners and smaller jobs. The broadfork, which has two handles attached to a foot bar fitted with tines, is a tool guaranteed to do nothing but rust in your tool shed. Bedding and manure forks belong in the barn or in paintings by Grant Wood. $35 to $65.

Raking

Like Rodney Dangerfield, rakes don't get much respect. Almost no one puts them on her or his favorite-tools list, yet every experienced gardener has one and uses it often. It is the tool par excellence for breaking small clods and smoothing the soil, for drawing up and mounding soil, for leveling beds and rs, for pulling out stones and odd bits of debris, for spreading compost and other soil amendments, for covering seedbeds. Enough said.

A garden rake is not the same as a lawn, or tine, rake—that tool you reluctantly pull out when the maple leaves have blanketed the lawn. There are two garden rakes to choose between, bowhead and flathead. A bowhead rake, my favorite, gets its name from the curved steel rods, or tangs, that run from each end of the head and attach it to the handle. The design creates a little "give" when you use the rake. The head of a flathead rake connects flush with the handle, forming a T.

All bowhead rakes have curved teeth; flatheads come with either curved or straight teeth. Look for models that have teeth spaced about an inch apart and a head between 14 and 16 inches wide. Anything wider is difficult to control and may be too heavy to use for more than 15 minutes. And make sure that your rake head is made from a single piece of tempered, high-carbon steel—no welding—and has a hardwood handle. $30 to $45.

You won't be happy if you choose a grading, or contractor's, rake, which looks like a very wide flathead garden rake, or if you are seduced by a lightweight aluminum model. Ditto a thatching rake, which resembles a garden rake but is intended for the lawn. And don't forget the most important thing about a garden rake: When you lay it down, make sure the teeth are pointed toward the ground. Trust me on this one.

Cultivating

It seems as if every garden season brings a new hoe, and if not a new design, a new twist on an old design. And why not? Few tools are as versatile as a hoe, and most gardeners spend more time with a hoe than with any other tool. Which hoes—notice the plural—you buy should depend on you and your garden. Rather push a tool than draw it toward yourself? Do you plant vegetables in wide, straight rows or is your garden a tightly planted perennial bed? Answer those questions and then make your choices, remembering that there is no one hoe that is exactly right for every cultivating job. Press me, though, and my first choice would be a common hoe, then an oscillating hoe, and in third place, a tined hoe.

Common, or garden, hoe

This is the hoe you'll find most often in garden centers and other retail stores. It has a broad, flat head, or blade—about 6 x 4 inches—sharpened on the outside edge, weighs between 2 and 3 pounds, and has a long handle (anywhere from 50 to 70 inches) attached to the head at a 70- to 90-degree angle. It's also known as a pattern hoe and as a draw hoe, the latter name coming from the way you draw it toward yourself when you use it.

Cheap models are sold everywhere, so be sure that yours has a head and neck that are not welded but made from a single piece of forged steel. The head should be attached to the handle with a socket secured by rivets, and the handle needs to be long enough so that you don't have to bend way over when you work. Expect to pay at least $25. Some models, known as swan- or gooseneck hoes, have a long, curved shank, or neck, that joins the blade and the handle. I think a gooseneck is hard to manage, but many gardeners swear by them.

A pint-sized version of the garden hoe is the floral hoe. This cut-down version is too light to be of much use—recommended only if you're 10 years old or weigh less than 75 pounds. Another common hoe variation is the onion, or Southern, hoe, which has a long, narrow head (7 x 3 inches) and is made for shallow weeding and cultivating. Similar is the collinear hoe, designed to be used with your thumbs pointing up. Its head measures about 6 x 1 inches, and many gardeners find it too light and difficult to control.

The common hoe and its look-alikes are all close descendents of the paterfamilias of the category, the eye, or pattern, hoe. The first name comes from the blade, which has an oval "eye" (like the hole in an ax head) through which the thick handle fits. It's a tool for tough jobs—it's also known as a grub hoe—and has a large head, about 8 x 7 inches, a relatively short handle, and weighs about 6 pounds. It's overkill in most gardens, a killer for most gardeners. $25 to $50.

Warren hoe

An American original, first sold in the 1870s, the Warren hoe is shaped like an arrowhead, point down. The head, which measures about 4 x 6 inches, has no cutting edge but is good in close quarters and for creating holes, upending weeds, and making and covering furrows. $25 to $35.

Oscillating hoe

The oscillating hoe, also known as the action hoe, stirrup hoe, and hula hoe, has a stirrup-shaped head that is hinged to its handle. The head is sharpened on both sides, so you both pull and push it along the ground. It's ideal for cutting weeds just below the soil's surface, but it is not designed for digging, grading, chopping, or cultivating. Make sure yours is made of tempered steel. $20 to $30.

A variation on this theme, another weeder, is the scuffle, or Dutch, hoe, an unhinged version with various head shapes—triangular is most common—that normally are sharpened only on the front edge and cut on the push stroke. $30 to $40. Another type, the circle hoe, made Sunset Magazine's list of the 100 best inventions of the 20th century, but it doesn't make mine. It has a circular head, as the name implies, which gives you only a tiny cutting surface. $25.

Tined hoe

This is a great, light tool for uprooting small weeds once your garden is planted and for aerating the soil around new and established plants. Its head, which should be forged and not welded to the neck, or tang, consists of four slightly curved tines. $30. (There are one-tine models called finger hoes, which you do not want to buy because they are useless.) For really heavy work, consider a hook cultivator. It's almost identical to a tined hoe but tough enough to have pleased Goliath. $35 to $45.

Carrying

There's always something in the garden that needs to be somewhere it isn't: a load of compost, a clump of daylilies, four flats of annual flower seedlings, two dozen tomato stakes, 5 cubic feet of mulch, and more. You'll want a vehicle for carrying big loads. Forget about the purple, fat-wheeled, molded-plastic yard buggy that looks as if it belongs on the moon and choose between a two-wheeled garden cart and a wheelbarrow.

Garden carts

Garden carts are three-sided boxes mounted on two bicycle wheels. They're large enough to hold several bales of hay, strong enough to handle loads of 400 pounds, yet easy to push (or pull) and to balance. Get one that is made of heavy plywood and has inflatable tires and a hinged panel in front (for easy dumping). And buy the large model (between 3 and 4 feet wide): If you do enough hauling to need a garden cart, you need the big one. $175 to $300.

Wheelbarrows

A wheelbarrow is a tray with two handles and a wheel underneath. In some form, it's been around for about 2,000 years, which ought to be recommendation enough for any gardener. It's less stable than a cart—you have to balance it when moving—but it can go up and down narrow rows and turn on a dime. Don't waste your money on an inexpensive, lightweight "lawn" wheelbarrow. Instead, look for a model with an extra-deep tray, called a contractor's wheelbarrow. Be certain yours has an inflatable wheel at least 4 inches wide (for stability) and a seamless tray if it's made from steel (heavy polyethylene trays, which are both light and rustproof, are an excellent alternative to steel). $100 to $175.

For a small or patio garden, a bucket may be all you need for toting things to and fro. If you can't pick up a free 5-gallon plastic bucket at a construction site, buy a galvanized steel model. Or consider one of the new collapsible weeding buckets made of strong, vinyl-coated polyester, for hauling the spoils of an hour spent weeding. $33 for the 30-gallon version, $22 for the 10-gallon model. Mine keeps me from being a garden Gretel, always leaving a trail of debris and hand tools.

A trug—a shallow, oblong basket made of strips of wood—is the traditional English mode of transporting cut flowers and herbs. In addition to being useful, a trug will make you look picturesque as you snip thyme, bay, and parsley for a bouquet garni. $40 to $125. To pick flowers in style, consider a galvanized French floral bucket, $25 to $30 for an extra-large model (18 inches tall), $18 to $20 for a 12-inch medium one. Wire-mesh baskets are meant for carrying the bounty of your vegetable patch. They're strong but open, so air can reach the produce, and you can hose them and their contents down before you go indoors. $15 to $25.

Finally, tarps and plastic sheeting—or old sheets and bedspreads—are great for moving the weeds you've pulled, the leaves you've raked, and the clippings you've cut to the compost pile.

Hand Tools

Although anything without a motor qualifies as a "hand tool," most gardeners have short-handled implements in mind when they use this term. How and where you garden dictates how often you'll need hand tools. If you're a down-on-your-knees, nose-in-the-dirt gardener, or if your growing takes place on a patio or deck, hand tools are for you. Garden Tools of Maine is one name to look for if you want strong, durable tools.

Trowels are the backbone of this family of implements, often sold as part of a three-tool set: trowel, fork, and claw. The others are occasionally useful; the trowel is a must.

You'll need a trowel for digging modest holes in prepared soil and working in containers of all kinds. Wide-blade models are better for garden chores, narrow-blade, or transplanting, trowels are for excavating in pots, tubs, barrels, and boxes. You'll find an array of cheap trowels made from stamped metal for sale, so be careful when you buy. Pick a one-piece metal trowel, either aluminum or stainless steel, or a trowel with a tempered carbon-steel blade connected to an ash handle by a solid socket. A good trowel costs $12 to $18.

If trowels are the hand-tool equivalent of spades and shovels, hand forks are the scaled-down version of garden forks. Most have three sturdy tines, and like their big brothers and sisters, are designed for cultivating the soil. Claws, which look like a three-fingered, half-open hand, are also made for cultivating and weeding. $12 to $18.

You may also find heavy-duty versions of this hand-tool trinity, most with handles 15 inches long and heads mounted at right angles to the handle by an eye socket. It's an ancient design, suited for vigorous work and vigorous workers. Contemporary ads contend they "eliminate kneeling." Unless you can touch your toes and hold that position for ten minutes, don't believe it.

I'm enthusiastic about my hand cultivator, a Korean tool with a short wood handle and a curved, carbon steel head that resembles the blade of a plow. I use it to loosen soil, make and cover furrows, dig holes, hill up plants, and uproot weeds. $13 to $18. It may appear in stores and catalogs as an EZ-Digger and a hand plow. Pass on the long-handled version.

You may want to take a close look at hand weeders, especially if your garden is too tightly planted to use a hoe safely. The Cape Cod weeder is a New England favorite. Shaped like the letter L and made in Maine by Snow & Nealley, its narrow blade is meant for cutting weeds just below the soil's surface. About $18 for the 9-inch-handle model. Dandelion, or taproot, weeders are designed for getting out weeds that have taproots. Most have a long, narrow blade with a forked tip. $8 to $10. If you're a patio gardener, consider a patio knife, a tool for weeding between bricks and stones. $10.

Starting Out

The Japanese use a weeding knife, which has a 6-inch blade that is sharpened on both edges (one smooth, one serrated); it's also known as a soil knife and farmer's weeder and can be used for any cutting job. $15. And if you come across a Jekyll weeder, which looks like a tuning fork with a wood handle and was a favorite of the British garden maven Gertrude Jekyll, give it a try. Better still, send it to me—I've been looking for one for years.

Two hand tools are especially useful for planting: a bulb planter, which is an open-ended cone sharpened on its bottom edge, and a dibble. A short-handled bulb planter doesn't have the oomph to pierce turf but is great for making planting holes in prepared soil. $5 to $10. (For naturalizing bulbs in turf, buy a heavy-duty bulb planter with a long handle and a foot tread, $45.) A dibble, or dibber, is an evolved stick—use it to poke a hole in the ground for seeds, bulbs, and transplants. Truth be told, you can use a sturdy stick or a broken hoe handle. But a dibble is an essential tool just because it's so beautiful. You need one, if only to look at.

Et Cetera

What tools and equipment come next? You'll eventually need a file, of course. Paying good money for a top-notch shovel or hoe is a waste unless you have a file to keep it sharp. When the time comes, look for a bastard file. The term refers to the file's teeth and has nothing to do with its family history. Pick one that is at least 10 inches long, either a flat mill file or a half-round model, which is flat on one side and half-round on the other. $10 to $15.

And before long, you'll need a soil thermometer. At planting time, the temperature of the soil is as important as the temperature of the air. A good one costs about $30, a cheap model about half that. While you're browsing the "measurements" section of the garden catalog, buy a rain gauge ($5 to $10) and a maximum/minimum thermometer ($25).

The list could go on and on. The authors—experts all—of the chapters that follow will guide you through the "material world" of other, more specialized garden activities. Their recommendations are worth following. But begin with a few of the basic tools described above. And wait on everything else until you need it.

---

1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11225 · 718-623-7200 | Copyright © 2008 BBG
Contact BBG · Directions · Conditions of Use · Privacy Policy · Accessibility Statement · Site Map