More on Garden Tools for Your Country Home
This is a continuation of a longer post I wrote earlier today. After spending a few hours on this hot summer day in my country garden, I realized there are a few basic tools I skipped right by in my article on garden tools.
Gardening Gloves
First and foremost, as it is the first thing I grab on my way out the door, are my garden gloves. Although initially I once enjoyed the feeling of moist humus dirt in my bare hands, after a few summers of wrecked nails, stained skin, spider bites and a few good cuts (finding metal and tin garbage from 50 years ago, brougth up from the frost) I decided enough was enough. Blistered and chapped hands with scraped skin may be the mark of a gardener, but when you’re meeting new people they tend to look at you as if you’re a lesser being once they see the mess your hands and nails are.
The solution is, of coure, specialty gardening gloves. For a few bucks you can have a few pairs on hand, one in the wash and one at the back door, or a few dollars more will buy you stronger pairs. The more time you spend in your country garden, the more you’ll want to spend on good quality gloves.
So how do you know which are good quality and which are just some marketing ploy? After all there are hundreds of styles and types to choose from. While some gloves offer protection against dirt stains seeping through, others are leather and meant to be kindest on your skin – allowing them to breathe while you work.
Some gloves are best for working with rose bushes (giving you a soft touch but allowing you to pruning stems without being steadily picked by thorns. However, if you’re working with wet soil, your special leather gloves are going to fall apart in short order.
Another factor to consider is size. Cramped hands in gloves that are too tight will kill your new love of gardening in short order. On the other hand, gloves that you’re steadily tugging at because they’re too large will be even less of a joy. (This is why you’ll want to buy children’s garden gloves when you’re soliciting the help of your young ones or just trying to get them out of doors.)
Hoses – The Second Most Useful Garden Tool
The next most important tool in your garden is the hose. I’ve had cheap ones and expensive ones. The expensive one is best – as long as you have a husband who looks to see where the hose is before firing up that lawn mower. There is nothing so frustrating as spending $50 on a hose one week and having it completely shredded the next!
Now, before you wonder why anyone would be crazy to spend $50 on a hose, let me tell you. Cheap hoses suck! They twist and bend, you’re steady pulling at the hose to unkink it, once they get some cold water in them you can barely work with them, and they just annoy the heck out of me. At any rate, since your plants must be watered in order to survive you need a hose – get the best one you can afford. — end of rant –
However, that’s not the end of the watering bit – consider also picking up a drip hose (the water flows out of tiny holes all the way along the hose – for ground watering. A lot of people buy sprinklers but this is a sincere waste of water (it evaporates) and cold water splashing down on 90 degree plants isn’t good for the plants.
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