What are your 5 favorite gardening tools or items?

[CocalicoSprings]

My favorite are: hori hori knife, felco pruners, bicycle-wheeled cart, stirrup hoe, and a dibble. What are yours?

[Katey]

I couldn't live without my all-purpose weeding/planting tool. It's a flat blade about an inch wide with 90 degree bend in it like a single claw. You can dig with the tip and scrape with the side.

I'll agree with you on the garden cart.

One of those short shovels (about two feet long) is mighty handy.

Watering wands are great.

I've gotten a heck of a lot of use out of my SHARP triangular-headed Japanese hoe from Lee Valley.

[CherieOH]

I'll probably think of others later on, but these come to mind right now:
1. A. M. Leonard Soil Knife. Similar to the hori hori knife but has a guard that keeps my hand from slipping down over the blade and getting cut.
http://www.amleo.com/index/item.cgi?cmd=view&Words=4752
2. Rain Gauge, to see how much water my garden is getting or needs.
3. Watering Can, for obvious reasons.
4. Potter's Bench and all my pots.
5. Slug Saloons that lure slugs away from my plants with beer. They die, but they die happy.

[Jenn]

Wheel barrow, Weeding hoe (2 prongs opposite hoe type blade), rain gauge, pitchfork, trailer

[HermitJohn]

Hmm, tough... will limit myself to hand tools.

1. Grub hoe ($2 Chinese mattock with pick part cut off)
2. Ancient grape hoe I found buried someplace many years ago when I was digging and welded up a handle out of tubing from old bicycle.
3. wheelbarrow I got for $5 and put new handles in made of sections of downed limbs-- amazing how hard it is to find really straight sections of limbs. Looks very hillbilly....
4. my homemade garden cart made out of steel insert from an ancient refrigerator
5. Claw tool. Hard to describe, but buisiness end is tang broken off one of those multi prong high wheel plow cultivator sweeps, then with maybe foot of old water pipe welded to it as a handle. You wouldnt think it would be so handy just to look at it, but its the best thing when weeding or planting on your knees.

6. Yea you said five, but I like my little push planter for long rows. Saves so much work doing it by hand. Cant remember, like $10 at some auction. Wish it didnt have so much plastic as plastic doesnt age well. If they had made it of metal, would last a lifetime.

[Pat]

I heard on a gardening show, or read in a gardening book / magazine the most important gardening tool is a chair sitting on the edge of the garden.

If you go and sit there you will notice when something needs pruning, watering, harvesting etc.

And I've always since had a chair for breaks right next to the garden.

When I lived and worked in the city, for at least 3 if not all 4 seasons, I'd get home, change clothes grab a cool beverage of choice and head for that chair.

I still take breaks in my chair in the garden at least daily (if not more often)... It's not only my Favorite but most important tool for gardening!

Pat

[wy_white_wolf]

You mean these more than 2!

[EDDIE BUCK]

1-tiller
2-hoe
3-flat rake
4-peg-(dibble)
5-chair- for the things Pat mentioned plus,its a good quite spot to see them moles making ridges.Quietly get up and creep over there, and be still until it starts back ridging,then stomp right behind him,then kick him out and STOMP the living daylights outa HIM.Right after a rain is the best time to see them moving.

[Darren]

1. Sandvik hand pruner
2. Spud bar
3. Trench shovel
4. Wood handled spade

[Backfourty,MI.]

I have alot of garden items I use so I'll try & limit to just 5..........
1)hand spade
2) pruning shears or trimmers
3)A collapsible bag, flat bottom that I drag around while weeding & pruning
4)My long hoses
6) good sprinklers

[Tricky Grama]

I have an indestructable hand tool called a "trake" w/claw-type rake on one end & trowel on the other. The 'grip' part in the middle is kinda soft, easy on the hands. Its wonderful.
Couldn't do w/o my small rolling covered 'wagon'. You can sit on the top, even has cup holders! Open the top for weeds, whatever. As you are sitting on it, the top has a slit at one end for shoving weeds down into the 'bed' part. Handiest thing ever & I got it on sale one yr from Target for $16.
The garden cart comes in handy, too. And couldn't do w/o the shovel. And garden markers, maybe.

Patty

[Wisconsin Ann]

I was thinking about this and realized I have to put my anvil pruners on the top of the list. I have half a dozen or so. They live in odd places like the chicken coop, the feedbin, the car trunk....Extremely handy for cutting almost anything.

After that...collapsible metal rake..goes from wide for grabbing leaves and grass/hay to narrow to get into tiny places and the tines are really sturdy..not just wires. Dibble...yup. Triangle hoe.

I think I have a new favorite if I can find one...Patty's covered wagon! My back won't let me bend over or kneel very long anymore, so the wagon sounds great; and the cup holders sound GREAT!

[canfossi]

I have a weeding tool also, it's great! Also, my flat rake, edger, shovel and hand pruners are things I couldn't live without in my garden. Chris

[Shrek]

worm bed , 5 gallon plastic bucket , machete, mill bastard file and what grows natural on my property. Combined with my seed put back and 6 months of usable season and I can make a kitchen garden and did my first year here on the knoll.

[geo in mi]

Knife, fork, spoon, oven, stovetop

[Nancy]

Shuffle hoe, little garden cart that I can sit on and pick beans, it's got wheels and scoots along between rows, my garden cart that hauls compost from chicken house to compost pile and produce from garden to house, rototiller used each spring and fall, 5 gallon drywall buckets and welded wire tomatoe cages to keep those tomatoes off the ground, also a hose end sprayer to apply insecticides, organic of course

[seagullplayer]

I have a hoe like this with a full lenth handle, I got at a yard sale. It is my favorite tool to use.

I also bought an Earth Quake tiller last year, not the best tiller I have ever used, but it gets the job done.

I also have a small hand digging tool I like.

The two wheel cart I pull behind my ATV is pretty handy also! This year I even plan to rake grass and dump it on the garden...

[JJ Grandits]

Beer cooler.

[Bret4207]

Gravely tractor, Planet Jr wheel hoes, Gardenway seeder, manure spreader, water hose.

[fatrat]

shovel, hoe, Planet Jr. push cultivator, patato rake, shot gun.