Gardening is most definitely a labour of love. You can’t plant some seeds then sit back, relax, and expect a bumper crop and full blooms. Your garden’s success will, for the most part, reflect the effort that you put in. Spend more time on your garden and you should reap the rewards, whether they be in the form of flowers or food.
Although cutting corners isn’t always advised, there are certainly ways that you can make your time working in the garden easier! There are various tools and gadgets available to us now that can help with a number of struggles, including back and knee pain. Plus some garden tasks take up a lot of time that could be used more efficiently.
Here are some things you should include in your gardening arsenal to cut time and avoid aches and pains.
A Garden Tool Organizer
Do you ever find yourself marching back and forth across the garden because you left your trowel by the vegetable patch, or you couldn’t carry all your tools in one go?
We’ve all done this at some point, and it can be quite frustrating! Moving from working in one area of your garden to another can end up taking way longer than it needs to.
You should make life easier for yourself and use a garden tool organizer. They come equipped with various pockets to fit your pruners, trowel, and many more things, as well as a handle for easy carrying.
When you need to move to another area of your garden, all you need to do is put everything in the tool organizer and carry everything all in one go. Much easier, and much quicker!
The Compost Bin
We all need to do our bit to help save the planet, and we can do this in a number of ways, but the most common and widely known is composting.
Composting is a brilliant eco and budget friendly way to provide nutrients for your garden soil and plants, and it’s almost free! All compostable materials can come from your home in the form of food scraps, coffee grounds, and grass clippings to name a few.
All you need to do is decide what you want to put your compost in.
You can either create a loose compost pile, buy a bin for the materials to go in, or build your own container. Many prefer to go with a compost bin for their ease of use and there being basically no set up. Just put it in your garden and start adding your scraps. Easy!
In no time you’ll be making rich compost for your garden to enjoy.
Raised Garden Beds
Gardening is good for a number of things, from the environment to our personal health. However, one thing it can sometimes work against is our knees and back. All the constant bending over and kneeling can start to take its toll.
Fear not, there is a great work around for this problem. Raised garden beds! You can buy or build raised beds to fit your exact requirements as they are completely customisable. You can even choose designs that include seating around the edge to give your knees a rest.
If you struggle with your soil quality, building raised beds allows you to essentially start over with new soil or compost that is rich in nutrients, and ideal for your plants. Even better, because the soil you add hasn’t been compacted, it promotes deeper root growth and makes pulling any weeds effortless.
Chainsaw
If your garden has trees and bushes, you will need to keep them in check and stop them from overgrowing. Every year you probably dread the task of laboriously snipping away at the bushes and hiring a tree surgeon to take care of the trees.
Instead, take inspiration from the tree surgeon’s toolkit and invest in a chainsaw to make the job of tree care easier!
Instead of using shears or clippers to trim and prune bushes and shrubs, use a chainsaw to make light work of the task and cut the time it takes to complete it!
If your trees start growing into a neighbour’s garden, you can trim branches back before they become too overgrown and the job requires a professional to complete. Just ensure you uphold safety standards when working at any kind of height.
Garden Seeder
When it’s time to plant new seeds for the coming growing season, the task can become time consuming and wreak havoc on your knees and back, especially if you have a large area to cover.
You can make the job a breeze with a garden seeder. They work by planting seeds for you as you push the seeder along the soil.
Choose the right seed plate and fit it to the interior, then adjust the ground opener to the desired depth for your seeds. As you push the seeder along, seeds will drop at even intervals into the opened ground. Then the drag chain behind the seed drop tube will cover the planted seeds, and the rear wheel lightly compacts the soil.
You’ll be able to save so much time in comparison to manual seed planting, meaning you can get to other jobs around the garden quicker.
Miniature Tools
If you love gardening and plants, it’s likely that you keep indoor plants too. The issue with potted and house plants is that all of the tools you love using outside can be a bit too big for your indoor needs.
Arming yourself with a set of miniature tools will make your indoor gardening just as easy as it is outdoors with your normal sized tools. A small trowel, transplanter, and rake are a must, as well as a small watering can, miniature clippers, and tweezers.
A smaller toolkit is especially handy when caring for and transplanting cacti and succulents. You can easily arrange decorative stones and gravel in the pots, or apply small amounts of fertiliser.
Standing Weed Puller
Are weeds the bane of your gardening life? Especially when it comes to keeping your lawn looking its best, weeds can be a real pain.
One way of getting around weeds is to completely replace your lawn with a synthetic one. Artificial grass has surged in popularity over recent years as once installed, the need for many lawn maintenance tasks are eliminated. No more muddy patches, mowing, or pulling weeds! However, not everyone wants to make the switch.
If you prefer to keep your lawn natural, but don’t want weeding to be a long, difficult task, you should be using a standing weed puller. These tools eliminate the need to kneel and bend down to remove weeds, saving you from any pain or discomfort. Instead, simply sink the weed pullers prongs around the weed and its roots, contract, and pull out. Done!
In The End…
When you use tools to your advantage, you can cut your time working and increase your time spent enjoying your garden. You also have the added bonus of alleviating any aches and pains that gardening can inevitably cause, making the right tools essential!
Author Bio
This is a guest post from Kevin Hilton. Kevin is an avid gardener and DIYer and enjoys reading related gardening and home improvement articles. Working for Grabco, he gets to see a lot of the projects that homeowners embark on and the resulting transformations.
He also picks up a lot of fresh ideas and current trends, so enjoys writing about them to share with other like-minded readers.
