Want to Start Gardening? Here Are the Gardening Tools You Must Have

Gardening is a nice activity to do in your spare time. Planting seeds and watching them grow over time is a very satisfying experience. Not only that, gardening is also known as an activity that will leave positive impact to your mental health.

Gardening is known to reduce stress and anxiety and then lighten the mood. Doing this regularly is going to improve mental health. Since gardening includes physical activity, it is also good for your physical health since it is a good form of exercise.

Anyone can be a gardener, from people who work from home, just doing it in spare time, or a retiree looking for an activity to do. Whoever you are, if you want to be a gardener, you need to have the correct tools and equipment. Here are the gardening tools you must have to start your journey as a gardener.

Gloves

The most basic equipment you need to have is the gloves. Gardening is not only about planting seeds and watering plants, but sometimes you have to handle the plants yourself and some plants have thorny parts and a good pair of gloves will save you from any unnecessary injury.

Not only thorny plants, sharp gardening tools, and rocks in the soil can also potentially hurt your hands. Gloves will also keep your hands cleans since dirt can accumulate especially inside your fingernails and it could be very unhygienic.

Garden soil is full of fungi, bacteria or any other small organisms. If you garden without gloves, and you unknowingly cut your hand, one of these organisms can make their way into your body through your wound, and you can get an infection.

Trowel

A garden trowel is a gardening tool that look like a miniature of spade. Trowel is mainly used for planting since it's pointy tip is perfect for digging small holes into the soil. Some of these trowels even have gradation marks on the blades to make sure you can plant seeds or young plants in the exact depth.

Not only for seeding or planting young plants, a garden trowel can also be used to remove small plants without having to disturb the root system. You can also use this tool to get rid of the weeds that are stealing nutrition and water from your plants.

Shovel and Spade

You have the miniature one, now you also need the spade in actual size. People often think that shovel and spade are the same. Shovel has a curvier and wider blade to make easier to handle loose objects while spade has flat and sharpened surface to dig through dirt.

Either way, both can be used interchangeably depending on the situation on the garden but it's better to have both in your garden. This can be used for removing or planting big plants, create holes for new plants, and even removing small trees.

Watering Can

This might sound too obvious, but yes, watering can is one of the gardening tools you must have if you want to start gardening. Watering can particularly essential for small outdoor plants, indoor plants, or any plants that need direct and careful watering.

While most watering cans only have one handle, but nowadays they also make watering cans with two handles. These two-handled watering cans are good for kids or elderly gardeners to improved stability.

Pesticide Sprayer

You also need another thing to easily spray liquid to your plants but now it's pesticide. Pesticide is important to make sure your plants are protected from any pests that can be harmful to them and will disrupt their growth.

There are many choices of pesticide sprayer you can pick on the market. For a small garden, you can choose a small hand-held pressure sprayer that can help you to reach narrow and difficult area. But if you have a big garden, you might need pesticide sprayer that you will carry on your back to cover larger areas.

Garden Knife

One the gardening tools you must have is garden knife. While you're gardening, you will need to remove flowers, sticks, or roots and just using your hands would not be enough. You can also use garden knife to trim plants that produce fruits or vegetables.

A garden knife is particularly crucial if you want to have a vegetable garden because it's perfect for pruning stems that are soft and easily snips, also trims through leaves, knots and stems with a very good accuracy. A garden knife is small enough to carry around in your pocket, making it comfortable to use.

Pruning Shears

Not only a knife, you also need a scissors-like tool to cut while you're gardening, and garden scissors are called pruning shears, clippers, secateurs, or pruners. These tools are designed to shape, prune, and trim plants and small branches.

There are two kinds of pruners that are widely used, anvil-style pruners and bypass pruners. Anvil-style pruners work like knives on a board and would work best on dead wood, while bypass pruners work similar to scissors and good for green timber and fresh vegetation.

Rake

While gardening, you will also need something to clean your garden floor. Sometimes there will be rubbish or falling leaves, and you need a rake to clean it up. Rakes are available in different shapes and sizes, but a regular rake is a good start.

However, a rake that is adjustable can gather a big amount of leaves and also able to reach tight spaces, making it a tool that can perform the tasks of multiple gardening tools. Rake is also essential when you need to apply mulch or soil amendments.

Garden Hand Weeder

Obviously, you want your garden to be weed free, and this tool is essential to make that happen. A garden hand weeder is specifically designed to remove weeds, even their roots from the soil to prevent them to grow again in the future.

Even though its main purpose is to remove weeds and its roots, this particular tool can also be used to aerate the soil around your plants. You can do this by inserting the tool into the soil and move it around a bit. By doing that, you create a small hole that will allow nutrients and water to penetrate deeper into your plants roots.

Kneeler

When you are gardening, you could be kneeling for a long time and even the healthiest person would be exhausted from kneeling too long. A kneeler will give you something way more comfortable to kneel on while you continue your gardening.

Not only for kneeling, this tool can also be turned around and used as padded seats. While this is not very crucial for most gardeners, a kneeler is a must have for an elderly gardener. If you have a weak joint, choose a kneeler that has thicker foam that will offer more comfort and protection.

Wheelbarrow

The last one on gardening tools you must have is of course the wheelbarrow. You can use this to transport multiple items like manure, dirt, plants, and compost. You can also carry your gardening tools in there to make your gardening so much easier.