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How To Choose the Best Gardening Hand Tool

Before heading out to your raised bed garden, or to do some landscape gardening, make sure you have the right gardening hand tool. You deserve the best gardening equipment suited for your gardening enjoyment.

The raised bed garden is no place for cheap, thin gloves. Unless you enjoy feeling the thorns thistles pierce your skin, use leather work gloves with those big, fold-down cuffs. They can last for years if you dry thoroughly after using them.

When your raised bed garden or landscape gardening starts to mature there will come a time when loppers will be indispensable for trimming and cutting back old, thick stems and vines that are too much for pruning shears. If you are just starting your gardening, save your money, because you won't need this for a few years.

A gardening hand tool that is indispensable for turning and loosening soil in small patches is a short gardening fork. Find a good quality model with strong steel tines and a sturdy smooth handle.

Another landscape gardening or raised bed gardening needed gadget is a watering wand. This gardening hand tool is great for watering vegetables, flowers, and shrubs. It can be used to give your plants and vegetation a healthy soaking. Choose a model with a quick shutoff valve on the wand itself, and a sturdy quick-release fitting for the end that attaches to the hose. Spend the money to get a wand with brass fittings instead of plastic. It will last much longer.

Every raised bed gardening enthusiast needs a steel garden rake. This gardening hand tool has sharp steel teeth and is used for leveling and smoothing soil in your raised gardening bed or flower garden. Choose one with a smooth sturdy handle and steel tines.

A good pruner is one gardening hand tool that you will use almost daily in your landscape gardening. There are two types of pruners on the market. One is called an "anvil" pruner, and the other is called a "bypass" pruner. An anvil pruner has blades that meet on top of each other. Bypass pruners have blades that pass each other like scissors. Always use bypass pruners, the choice of gardening equipment, so you don't crush your stems.

Some people prefer the big water-resistant kneeling pads with handles, while others prefer strap-on knee pads. The strap-on knee pads are more convenient because they move when you move, but the one-size-fits-all knee cups may not work for you. In that case, the pads with handles should work best for your gardening.

A long-handled steel shovel is a landscape gardening or raised bed gardening must. Find a lightweight model with a strong, smooth handle. Shovels with fiberglass throats are good choices. Spend a few extra dollars and get one with a rubber-padded handle, and it will save you lots of blisters and sore hands as the years go by. Remember to always clean your gardening hand tool when you are finished using it.

A piece of gardening equipment you definitely need is a good wheelbarrow.
Avoid buying the cheap, cute, tiny gardening carts. You are going to need a real wheelbarrow, or heavy-duty plastic gardening cart. I personally prefer the plastic carts – no rusting, as with the steel wheelbarrows. As your raised bed gardening or landscape gardening hobby takes off, there will be no end to the things you will be hauling in and out of your garden. Some of those things will be very heavy and you'll be glad that you have a real quality piece of gardening equipment to help you with these jobs.

An important landscape gardening hand tool you will use often is the leaf rake. You will use this tool often for cleaning up clippings, leaves and other garden debris. You may want to buy both a regular size rake, and one of the smaller size rakes for pulling debris from smaller tight quarters.

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Gardening Hand Tool