Hand Garden Tools for Planting and Cultivating

Just how important are hand tools? Well, you wouldn’t have much of a garden without them. Hand tools constitute the backbone of all gardening-they always have and always will. Unless you are planting and cultivating acres of ground, you will use hand tools almost exclusively.

Where are They Used?

Your annual border, perennial border, rose border, small vegetable garden, coldframe, trees, shrubs, foundation planting, even your small lawn area will be planted and many times maintained with hand tools. ln fact, we can say that all gardening starts with operations performed with hand tools. So it is extremely important to know which ones to use at the proper time and how to use them to get the most work done with the least effort.

Start With Planting

Let’s start right out at the beginning with planting. We have already pointed out, how important it is to get plants off to the right start; now let’s consider how to do it.

Spading is the term used for turning over a whole bed or area. This expression comes from the fact that the spade is usually the tool for the job. In a majority of the cases it is, but there are times when the spading fork works best. Pushing a spade into stony soil or ground covered with a green crop is a tough job. In these cases the spading fork is the tool to use. The job of spading is usually finished off by raking to remove stones and break up rough clods.

Still on the subject of planting, we have to consider holes for some of the larger plants and, of course, trees and shrubs. There are occasions, however, on which the entire bed will need to be spaded for large plants. Examples of this would be complete rose borders or a foundation planting which is being put in in its entirety. For trees, however, a hole is always needed, as it would be for replacements in a foundation planting or shrub or rose border. The spade and shovel are the tools used here. Take a little extra time and dig the hole to the proper depth and diameter, even if the ground is hard and the digging a little tough. lf the soil is hard for you to dig, think of what the plant roots will have to push through if it isn’t broken up by you.

Tools for Cultivating

When it comes to tools for cultivating, it would be a safe bet to say that the average gardener owns more of these in a wider variety of shapes and styles than any other garden tool. The proper way to use them is sometimes quite confusing.

Take hoes, for instance. We have pictured the standard floral hoe, a pointed warren hoe and a scuffle hoe. There are many other types, of course. The floral hoe cuts into the soil quite deeply. Naturally you wouldn’t want to use this hoe on very shallow-rooted crops. The warren hoe can get between small plants much easier than the broader bladed hoe. The scuflle hoe, which is pushed back and forth just under the surface of the soil, is for very shallow cultivating and is best used on plants which have roots very close to the surface of the ground.

Pronged cultivators are also quite varied in shape and design. We show two long-handled pronged cultivators. The first is the favorite potato hook, which was originally used for hooking mature potatoes out of the ground. It is now used more for cultivating, in a chopping manner similar to that used with a hoe. The other is a large cultivator with adjustable teeth, similar to those found on tractors. One pulls this type of cultivator through the ground while walking backwards.

Other Hand Tools

The other hand tools that play important roles in planting and cultivating are the ones with short handles. We show only three as examples. First is the trowel which comes in several widths for planting small or large plants.

The next planting tool is the dibble (or dibber). This resembles an old pirate pistol and should be kept out of reach of small boys if you intend to keep it. This tool provides the holes for seedlings and very small plants. It has a metal tip which is easily pushed into the soil.
Hand cultivators are musts in every tool collection.: The wire pronged type is most common, but others are available. This is the cultivator used in coldframes and for close work in the annual and perennial border. True, these are “hands-and-knees tools,” but many times this is the only way to get weeds out.

Yes, hand tools are elementary, but shouldn’t be ignored.

Hand Gardening Tools for Planting and Cultivating

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