What are your 5 favorite gardening tools or items?

Triangle shaped hoe, wheel barrow, bucket, piece of wood that is the grove maker for rows, and many, many tomato cages. (use them for all sorts of veggies)

wheel barrow..."hula hoe" aka "swivel hoe"

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"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow the fields of those who don't."-Thomas Jefferson

Grand Pa's weeder, fiberglass handled shovel, garden cart, large aluminum trowel, lawn rake.

1. hori-hori
2. small triangle hoe
3. first small boy
4. second small boy
5. Spot the Chicken

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"I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else."
- G. K. Chesterton

Tiller
Rake
Lawn mower wth bag (I use 3"-5" of grass clippings between plants to prevent weeds)
Pruning shears
My DW -- she does a lot out there

Generally, after the raised-bed gardens are built, I only use my hands, a hoe, rake and an old serving spoon.

Year-end and -begining might involve a little Mantis tiller, shovel and wheelbarrow. Does the pickup I use to haul material count?

When building beds, I use a whole tool shed.

1. Husband
2, 3, & 4. My 3 sons
5. A hired man

Good ones "meanwhile"!
Yea, i'll go with that being my favorite, my partner who does most of the garndening... i do most of the wood prep...
Hay fork, regular sharpened garden hoe, string between two poles to keep the rows straight, and my hands (i do a lot of weeding with my hands while on my knees) fastest most accurate way i've experienced....

Another vote for hands. I use mine so much in the garden they get permanently stained during the growing season. Just can't stand to wear gloves (unless I'm pulling thistles).

Stirrup hoe

4 lb mallet (great for pounding stakes)

my horses and chickens (they make the fertilizer, lol)

dh and my ds, aka the tillers. One runs the big PTO powered tiller spring and fall, the other uses the rototiller between the rows all summer.

Also have to comment on the suggestion of putting a chair by the garden. Several years ago dh and I decided to build a drystack stone wall to differentiate the edge of the yard from the edge of the garden (and because we had lots of piles of fieldstone from clearing the pasture, yard, etc when we seeded them). The wall is about knee high (currently, grows a little every year when we come across more rocks) and is a great place to sit and rest while working in the garden.

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Kris
http://thislittleplacehere.blogspot.com/

Scuffle hoe....fastest hand weeding tool I've ever used.

I'm not a very good gardener I guess. For my flowers the thing I use the most is the pruners, gloves and the garden hose.

For my garden all I ever use is the hoe, my gloves and the wheelbarrow though I never considered it a garden tool before this thread.

1. Spade
2. Tiller
3. Tree / Tomato stakes
4. Hand trimmer-clippers
5. Soil test kits!!

1. Mulch. The knid with goat berries and pee saturated into it.
2. The worms that come to eat the mulch.
3. Wand spray water
4. DS to water and harvest.
5. Handy dandy garden cart.

With all of that mulch, we might weed 2-3 X week for 20 minutes in mid-Spring.

I guess I should add DHs Bobcat with the grapple that lets us clean out the goat pens with ease, and then apply the mulch in the late Fall. Without that - back breaking work!

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Camille
Copper Penny Ranch
Copper Penny Boer Goats (home of 4 National Champions, 4 Reserve Champions)
Copper Penny Pyrenees
Whey-to-Go Saanens


www.copper-penny-ranch.com

Well.... just ordered me a fancy-dancy stirrup-hoe. Plan on making a "dibble"... good thread. Work smarter...

good thread.

My Wife!!!!

Hank
http://www.doublemfarmandchuckwagon.webs.com

Hula hoe, winged weeder, potatoe fork, little tiller, Mulch. in no order.

husband, son, tractor, fork, half mood edger (that thing does so much around here, even digging trenches for burying wires and drig irrigation..

oh ..can i include the drip irrigation and a good shovel..

A shopping cart and a credit card!

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"What one generation tolerates, the next generation embraces." -John Wesley

1. Garden cart
2. Scythe
3. Earthway precision seeder
4. Backhoe
5. Hard tine rake

Those are the five most used garden tools. The garden is about an acre of hillside being turned into terraces so that's why the backhoe. After there are terraces, my DH said I can have a tractor and he's fixing one up for me. So I guess he is a sweetie even if he won't let me have ducks.

My triangular shaped hoe.

My wheelbarrow.

My red wagon.

My tomato cages made of concrete reinforcement wire.

My cane poles.

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I'm running so far behind I thought I was first!

http://hickahala.blogspot.com/