Garden tools

A small set of well-made hand tools covers almost all the work in an ordinary garden. Quality matters more than quantity: a good spade or pair of secateurs lasts for decades, and poorly made ones bend or blunt within a season.

The basic set

• Spade: for digging, planting and edging. A border spade, with a smaller blade, is lighter and easier to use in confined beds.
• Fork: for loosening soil, lifting root crops, dividing plants and turning compost.
• Hand trowel and hand fork: for planting and weeding at close quarters.
• Hoe: a Dutch hoe is pushed just below the soil surface to cut off weed seedlings, most effectively on a dry day.
• Rake: a rigid soil rake levels beds for sowing; a spring-tine rake clears leaves and moss from lawns.
• Secateurs: bypass secateurs, with blades that pass like scissors, for stems up to about finger thickness.
• Watering can and a bucket or flexible tub for carrying weeds and compost.

Loppers, a pruning saw, shears and a wheelbarrow are added as the garden requires them. Tools needed once a year, such as a scarifier or a long-reach hedge trimmer, can be hired or borrowed; some towns have tool libraries that lend them.

Choosing tools

Stainless steel blades slide through sticky soil and do not rust; carbon steel is stronger and holds a sharper edge but needs cleaning and oiling. Heads forged from a single piece of steel outlast those welded or pressed from sheet. Handles of ash or fibreglass absorb shock better than steel tubing.

Length and weight matter as much as materials. A spade or fork that is too short forces the user to stoop, and long-handled versions are made for taller gardeners. Tools are best handled before buying. Second-hand tools from older makers are often better made than new ones and usually need only cleaning and sharpening.

Gloves

No single glove suits every job.

• Thin, close-fitting gloves with a nitrile or latex-coated palm keep hands clean while leaving enough feel for weeding, sowing and potting.
• Leather gloves protect against thorns, splinters and blisters during pruning, digging and handling timber.
• Gauntlets, which cover the forearm, are used for roses, brambles and holly.
• Waterproof, lined gloves are for wet and cold work in winter.

Fit matters: gloves that are too large slip and cause blisters, and those that are too tight tire the hands. Soil and manure can carry tetanus bacteria, so cuts and grazes are covered before gardening, and gloves are worn when handling compost and manure. Bags of compost are opened outdoors or in a ventilated space, with the face turned away from the dust.

Power tools

Battery-powered hedge trimmers, strimmers and mowers have largely replaced petrol and corded versions in small gardens, and many makers use one battery across a range of tools. Corded tools are plugged into a socket protected by a residual current device. Eye protection is worn with strimmers and hedge trimmers, and ear protection with petrol machines and shredders.

Looking after tools

Soil is brushed or washed off after use and the tool dried. Carbon steel is wiped with an oily rag before being put away for winter. Spades and hoes work better with a sharpened edge, restored with a flat file; secateurs and shears are sharpened with a fine stone on the bevelled side only, and their pivots oiled. Wooden handles are sanded smooth when they roughen and rubbed with linseed oil.

Wiping secateur blades with disinfectant after cutting diseased wood avoids carrying infection to the next plant. Tools kept hanging in a dry shed last far longer than those left outdoors.