Basic tools for new gardeners

[Tetters]

My own first necessity would be a good digging fork like this one With limited budgets, new gardeners might be perplexed about which tools they should look for first when starting a garden.
This one is a ladies fork like my own, which is the first tool I look for when I venture out.
It would be interesting to have some thoughts on members views about their own best used tools.

 

[Anniekay]

My own first necessity would be a good digging fork like this one With limited budgets, new gardeners might be perplexed about which tools they should look for first when starting a garden.
View attachment 2157 This one is a ladies fork like my own, which is the first tool I look for when I venture out.
It would be interesting to have some thoughts on members views about their own best used tools.

I can't really use a digging fork much, they don't work well on sandy soil. I have my big 'ol Jackson shovel. Oh, and it has a thick fiberglass handle and thick padding on top which, in all these years, is still in perfect shape. I feel very lucky to have this shovel because "they just don't make 'em like this anymore" !!


Mine is a good older model with a thick kick plate on top.

See how thick that weld is? The kick-plate is super heavy duty.

I put my "shovel- kickin' " boots on and since my soil, though sandy, is also very compacted ( old owners drove their trucks all over the yard) I jump on this shovel and my weight sinks it right down in. Best tool for digging new beds, or anything else, for that matter !!

 

[Tetters]

Mine is a good older model with a thicBest tool for digging new beds, or anything else, for that matter !!

Whatever do you mean .... ....

 

[Zigs]

I was looking at what we call "American shovels" Annie, like your one. They were £30 in B&Q so I thought I'd wait till I really needed one.

Got a smaller one for the Salty Monk instead

 

[Anniekay]

Whatever do you mean .... ....

I edited that it was where I stuck a photo into the middle of the text and got all confuzzled up !!

 

[Anniekay]

I was looking at what we call "American shovels" Annie, like your one. They were £30 in B&Q so I thought I'd wait till I really needed one.

Got a smaller one for the Salty Monk instead

View attachment 2161

I got mine used at an auction and it cost me $30. Shovels of good quality here are pretty pricey !!

 

[Zigs]

I got mine used at an auction and it cost me $30. Shovels of good quality here are pretty pricey !!

That's a better price I know, I used a "home made" one in Turkey. It looked like a good one but the blade wobbled about like it was made of jell-o

 

[Sheal]

I'd be lost without a fork as well, it's a universal tool. What is now called a border fork used to be called a ladies fork because it's smaller and easier to handle. I use a spade in the garden for a number of things too, including edging the lawn. A shovel here in Britain has curved edges but a spade is pretty much straight edged.

Spade


Shovel

 

[Anniekay]

I'd be lost without a fork as well, it's a universal tool. What is now called a border fork used to be called a ladies fork because it's smaller and easier to handle. I use a spade in the garden for a number of things too, including edging the lawn. A shovel here in Britain has curved edges but a spade is pretty much straight edged.

Spade
View attachment 2163

Shovel
View attachment 2164

We call both of those a Flat Shovel. I use that for picking up piles of dirt that's on a hard surface, used like a steel dustpan. I couldn't make a flat shovel go into my ground without a sledge hammer !!

 

[Zigs]

I found Tetter's little boy's old trowel and gave it a new coat of Hammerite

 

[olly-buckle]

I'd be lost without a fork as well, it's a universal tool. What is now called a border fork used to be called a ladies fork because it's smaller and easier to handle. I use a spade in the garden for a number of things too, including edging the lawn. A shovel here in Britain has curved edges but a spade is pretty much straight edged.

Spade
View attachment 2163

Shovel
View attachment 2164

 

[olly-buckle]

The main difference I see is that a spade has a welded on tubular handle and a spade is pressed out of a single piece of flat steel, this means that outside a spade should be stood upside down and a shovel thrown down on its backto stop water getting in the covered part of the handle. That is besides using a shovel for shovelling and a spade for digging.
Discovered a stall on Battle market that sells second hand tools, it would be reat, except I have most of them.
Good tools for beginners, I would say an onion hoe. Also , looking at hand tools look how the handle is joined, if tool and handle are cut from one flat sheet it isn't going to last. The best hoe you will find nowadays is a flat piece of steel welded to the rod that joins the handle, I have a hoe that is a single, forged piece of metal and I reckon over a hundred years old, The blade is a good bit smaller than it started and it has had a new handle or two, but it is still in regular use. Can't see the modern ones lasting that long.

 

[blenor 2]

I can't really use a digging fork much, they don't work well on sandy soil. I have my big 'ol Jackson shovel. Oh, and it has a thick fiberglass handle and thick padding on top which, in all these years, is still in perfect shape. I feel very lucky to have this shovel because "they just don't make 'em like this anymore" !!
View attachment 2158

Mine is a good older model with a thick kick plate on top.
View attachment 2159
See how thick that weld is? The kick-plate is super heavy duty.

I put my "shovel- kickin' " boots on and since my soil, though sandy, is also very compacted ( old owners drove their trucks all over the yard) I jump on this shovel and my weight sinks it right down in. Best tool for digging new beds, or anything else, for that matter !!

They are great for making potato trenches. It's sometimes called an Irish shovel over here.

 

[Anniekay]

They are great for making potato trenches. It's sometimes called an Irish shovel over here.

That's probably what brought this type shovel to the States: The Potato famine !! All those Irish immigrants !! .

 

[blenor 2]

I suppose it depends upon what state the new garden is in. Some plots on our allotment site have metre high grass. So, in that case you would need some kind of robust strimmer or at least be able to hire one. A stout digging hoe is also a useful tool for breaking up the clods and skimming off surface grass.

 

[Tetters]

Hello @blenor 2 , it is lovely to have you on board. we bought this shovel for turfing. It's a Fiskars one (not too expensive) Zigs seems to like it, he's used it on lots of different jobs.
It is the hoes I get confused about. I like the sound of @olly-buckle's antique one - mind you old is usually best, even with people.....look at me

blenor 2, if you fill in a bit more of your profile, we'll have some idea of where you are ( please...)

 

[Sheal]

I've never owned a hoe, my fork deals with most things.

 

[Anniekay]

@Tetters hoes can be confusing. There are too many names for them. There are three different styles that are all called scuffle hoes.

This one doesn't move back and forth, called a scuffle hoe.


This one, the kind I have, moves back and forth, called a scuffle hoe
Then this one's nothing like the other two and they call it a scuffle hoe too !!

What's up with that?

 

[olly-buckle]

I can't really use a digging fork much, they don't work well on sandy soil. I have my big 'ol Jackson shovel.

There is a process called 'Forking' where you don't actually dig, but drive the fork in at an angle almost parallel to the surface then lift the soil slightly and let it drop back, it lets air into the soil without breaking up the structure, better than digging in a lot of cases.

I have always used an old site shovel, the builder I worked for used to buy a new shovel when we opened up a new site, reckoned it was worth it for what it did for morale, and I kept one. On my birthday recently I got a Wilkinson aluminium lightweight shovel, it's a revelation, I realised half the weight in each shovelful I had been lifting was the actual tool.

Had a job in my youth on a site building a sports pitch, the old Irish foreman watched me trying to shift a heap of gravel and showed me how to use a shovel, putting the side of your knee against the hand on the handle to push. He was great, he used to make tea in a billy can over a brazier, a handful of tea and a can of condensed milk and boil it for an hour or so, we would get a cup of that and a piece of the bread pudding he made in his digs on a Sunday with the roast, set you up for the morning.

 

[Tetters]

So, Olly, old is not always so wonderful for tools as well as people. Sometimes though, it is the old and familiar I tend to prefer these days. Lightweight, sharp and regularly cleaned tools always work best.
The old Irish foreman you mention reminds me of Fred. Fred was an old boy who was my neighbour many years ago. He worked as a fireman in London through the Blitz, and told many sad and shocking stories about London at that terrible time. His workmates called him Mrs M*** - not anything to do with today's definitions, but because he would get into the works kitchen and very speedily make excellent cakes for them to go with their tea. He was quite popular.