A lot of us cultivate our gardens so we’ll have fresh fruits and vegetables all year long. There are also some of us who want to have beautiful plants, particularly those eye-catching flowers that can light up any home.

So whether you fall under the former or the latter, a fledgling green thumb or an experienced one, if you’ve been gardening for quite some time, chances are you’ve collected your own set of tools.

Here on HuntForGardening, we’ve recently talked about a cool garden rack that’s one of the many ways to keep our hand tools organized. Other than being an appropriate storage space, it also adds a rustic feel to an outdoor area.

Yes, it’s appealing and nifty at the same time, but what about the other implements? Are they scattered all over your shed? Do they take up significant space in your garage? Worst of all, are they hanging around in different parts of your home?

If you have these tool storage problems in your garden, and have wanted to fix them but don’t know where to start, then you should understand the value of the proper organization. To a certain extent, everything begins and ends with knowing how to categorize. In a more formal setting, MG Rush teaches us ways on how to sort out a list of ideas and insights. This can be our starting point in arranging our garden tools.

Since we’re already on the subject of getting ideas from various industries on the web, it’s also important to know which implements fall under a specific category. Industry leader Screwfix simply organizes its outdoor and gardening tools page according to their respective use.

You have the aforementioned hand tools, garden tools, and those for maintenance and care, as well as rural supplies and garden buildings. From here, we can easily determine and properly sort out various types of tools in the garden.

Part of the benefits of organizing your garden tools is that you maintain their quality. Before putting them away, you should – at the very least – clean them of all mud and moisture. You can even use a wire brush to scrub and rid excess muck.

This prevents outdoor tools from holding moisture, which can be detrimental in the long run. If you have to remove rust, you should be aware that vinegar is one of the most effective methods to scrub it off. On the other hand, for sap stains on tools, turpentine is the best way to go. Now to protect wooden handles and metal tools from rust, you can apply linseed oil or, better, WD-40, based on a Gizmodo article.

In hindsight, the Internet presents us with a lot of practical ideas about different gardening subjects. Most of these are simple enough, that we can accomplish them in a matter of days – even hours. The aforementioned suggestions, collectively, give you an idea of how to execute these jobs. So for more horticulture tips and tricks, be sure to check out HuntForGardening updates in the coming days.

How to organize your tools and your working place

Gardening is not an easy job, and messy working place and dirty tools are making it even less easy. If you want your gardening jobs to be easy and more enjoyable, a real gardener should have clean and good gardening tools. Clean and properly stored gardening tools will not just look good but they will last longer, and you will have more pleasure to work with them.

Think about which tools you really need.

Almost everybody has a place where all the tools are spending most of their lifetime. How many of them are you really using? Do you really need 5 shovels and 5 rakes? If you are using them maybe once per year, then maybe don’t store them together with other tools which you are using almost daily.

For example – in front of doors in the most accessible place you have a branch hacksaw, but in the garden, you have small fruit trees or shrubs, whose branches can easily be pruned by the pruning shears. Or you have 4 types of a hoe but you have a beautiful, green lawn with one small flower garden.

It’s better to have a small amount, but specific and high-quality tools than a pile of tools that you have almost never used and will never use. And tools are meant to be frequently used – if you are using them often they will remain sharp, easy to use, will keep their functionality, and will be safe. Tools that have not been used for a long time are losing these features.

So, at first – get rid of old, broken and never used tools.

I have seen almost in every gardener’s place – they have 4 shovels, old, broken hoes, and other broken tools. This kind of tool will take your place in your storage room and also in your mind. You will have this thought – hmm, maybe I should fix this. Even if you know that you will never do that.

It is better to have one good, high-quality shovel than three bad quality or broken. That’s why I’m suggesting to take a look at your tools at least once per season and throw out all broken and unused tools without mercy. Tools nowadays cost less than 10 years ago. Even high-quality tools are not that expensive. Of course, I’m not saying that you just bought a shovel, broke it and you should throw it away. If you can fix it, then why not, but if that’s an old, rusty shovel, then it’s better to buy a new one.

So, winter is slowly fading away and in the shops soon will be sales for tools – so start making a list of what kind of tools you need! Another choice is at the end of summer, beginning of autumn consider which type of jobs you did in the summer and what you will do next year and then buy tools according to that information. These are two ways to get cheaper tools at the best time.

Choose using and to store safe gardening tools

The more type of gardening jobs we do, the more gardening tools we need and to store them we need more and more space. There is a solution. Fiskars are offering this QuikFit thing. That means you can use one handle for many types of tools. If you need 3 types of hoes, then buy from Fiskars and use only one handle – just change the hoe.

They are also offering hoes, cultivators, rakes, pavement brush, brush saw and snow shovels. There is one more company called “Gardena” which is offering the same system as Fiskars. Buying tools with one handle are a good way to save space in your storage room. These tool “heads” are easy to hand on the wall and they take less space than standard tools with handles.

Clean and think about your tools after using

This is the hardest part – after an exhausting and hot day in the garden you don’t want to hear about cleaning and storing your tools, but you MUST do it because it’s necessary for tool lifetime and your comfort.

As I said above, clean tools will stay sharp, good and life will be a lot longer. The easiest way to clean them is to wash them. This is for extra clean gardeners – some companies are suggesting to clean sharp tools with soap water so that they will stay clean from rust and it makes the metal harder. There is one more good way to clean your tools – sand with oil. This mixture helps to clean pruning shears, shovels, and hoes. It also makes a small layer of oil, which helps to keep tools cleaner for a longer time.

Once per season, it’s good to sharpen your tools. Fiskars are suggesting if you are using your tool very often, then sharpen every month. For moving parts, it’s good to put some oil time by time, so they will move like brand new and rust will not break them. Remember, every tool which has a spring, must be put together for storing, so the spring is in tension. This helps to keep the spring in maximum tension.

Clean tools will help to avoid diseases in your garden

Cleaning your tools right after use will help to prevent diseases. If your roses have the disease and you are pruning them, and later with the same pruners you are cutting other flowers, there is a very high chance to bring that disease to another flower.

So, after using tools on plants that have diseases, it’s recommended to wash tools in the water together with disinfection products. I’m cleaning them with toilet cleaner because it has chlorine. The most important thing is you wash them very carefully because disinfection products can damage your plants!

Special care needs averruncators and all other cutting tools after using them on plants with diseases. You can also buy special cleaning products for tools in your local garden shop.

Store tools in right place!

A humid place is not the best place for storing your tools because they will start to rust very fast and will lose their good qualities. The best place for storing it is a dry place and using a garden tool rack. A place does not need to be warm, it just needs to be dry and has enough space for tools.

Make a special place for each tool.

Small garden tools you can store in a box or in a chest. Bigger garden tools are better to store by hanging them on the wall. Before buying each tool I recommend taking a look at how easy is to store them if they have holes to hand them etc. Again I’m suggesting Fiskars one-handle system. Handle you can hang on the wall and also small tools or just put small tools in the box.

Garden tool rack – a good way to keep your tools organized

The struggle, when you can’t find your perfect shovel or tools is taking too much space, and you can find tools in every corner. Every gardener knows that feeling. There are plenty of ways to make your tools organized, and a garden tool rack is one of them. It is possible to make a garden tool rack even from wires, all you need is an idea and some time. Of course, there are hundreds of garden tool racks that you can just buy, but let’s talk about that later.