Do you love to garden, but simply don’t have the time for tool maintenance? Here are some tips that will help you keep your tools ready for gardening without taking up a lot of your time. These simple tips can help keep your tools viable for years to come.

For Larger Gardens, Keep Two Tools Handy

If you have a large yard or garden space, but not a lot of time to maintain your garden tools, the easiest way to ensure that you always have the tools you need at your disposal is to keep two of every major tool in your garden shed. Rather than relying on one favorite shovel, invest in a second shovel to keep in your tool shed. That way, if one shovel should go dull, you will always have a second one ready for use at a moments notice. Don’t let a dull shovel keep you from gardening when you have time. You may also want to keep several hand tools at your disposal.

Cover the Pipes in Cold Weather

This is an easy maintenance tip that can save your watering hose and pipes during cold weather. Keep thick protective covering on hand that you can use to wrap around your pipes during cold weather. This easy step can save you money and time on damaged pipes.

Schedule a Tool Sharpening Expedition

Many people find tool maintenance time-consuming because it seems like a tool goes dull at just the wrong moment. Sporadic repairs are time-consuming and annoying. Avoid this by scheduling a tool sharpening expedition. Take one afternoon to gather all of your tools and take them to your local tool repair or home repair shop for a thorough sharpening. Simply scheduling a tool sharpening expedition once or twice yearly will keep your tools in fine shape and ready for use at a moments notice. Gather your spade, hoe, shovel, pruning tools, garden scissors, hand tools and other gardening tools and drop them off at your local hardware store for a thorough tool sharpening.

Prevent Tool Damage By Taking a Few Easy Precautions

There are many small precautions that you can take that will prevent tool damage. These precautions should only take a few minutes out of your gardening schedule. First, protect garden tools from extreme temperature. Although this may not occur to you, exposure to excessive sunlight, rain or cold temperatures can drastically reduce the efficacy of your tools. This is where storage comes into play. If you have a tool shed, garden shed or other protective outdoor area, make sure that you gather your tools after a gardening session and store them away. This simple act can dramatically increase the longevity and efficacy of your tools. Get in the habit of putting things away, and your tools will suffer much less wear.

Keep Your Lawn Mower Properly Stored

If you are like most people who keep a green lawn, you probably have some kind of lawn mower stored away. Lawn mowers often represent the most expensive yard maintenance tools that you have. Avoid damaging your lawn mower by keeping it stored improperly. Improper storage can cut years off the life of your lawn mover. Protect your investment by keeping your lawn mower properly covered at all times. Invest in a strong, plastic lawn mower cover. Better yet, store the lawn mower in a shed or other covered location, whenever possible. Also, keeping your lawn mower cutters properly sharpened can also help increase its longevity and efficiency. Set a schedule for having the cutters sharpened at least once a year, depending on the size of your lawn and use.

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Gardening can be a healthy and fun way to beautify your environment and get some exercise. But it is nearly impossible to get anything done in the garden with efficiency if you do not spend some time organizing your gardening tools and materials. If you have a shed that is full of clutter, this alone is probably costing you a lot of valuable gardening time. Here are some tips for conquering the clutter in your shed in order to make gardening easier.

What’s in that Old Shed, Anyways?

If you haven’t peeked in that shed for a while, chances are that this is question worth asking. What is in that old shed? Is it a place where you have stored old tools, planting soil or building materials? Chances are that you might even have a few hidden treasures in that old shed that you completely forgot you had. The first step to organizing your gardening so that it becomes a more efficient and pleasant practice is to take a full inventory of what is in your gardening shed. Cross off a whole afternoon for this task, or (depending on the size of the shed) a whole day. Wear thick work gloves and begin to remove items so that you can get a close look at all those things you’ve had stored away.

Determine Whether Your Shed Needs Repair

You may find that your old shed is need of repair. Depending on the type of building materials, sheds are often prone to rust, wood rot, roof problems or other types of repairs. Are you willing to invest the money and time for a proper repair? Decide whether the shed is still viable, and whether it would be more cost-effective to repair or replace it. In many cases, your shed may just need a thorough sweeping and clearing out. Now is the time to get that project done.

Decide What’s Useful and What’s Not

Once you have dragged out all those things in your gardening shed and taken stock of what you have, it is time to decide what is useful and what’s not. Many of us store old tools in our garden sheds that aren’t quite what they used to be. Decide which tools are still useful to you, and which are well past their prime. Separate your old tools into two piles: tools that can be repaired, and tools that would be better off being discarded. If you find that you have accumulated a lot of tools that are in need of repair, make an appointment to get them fixed and stick to this day. You can get axes and old-fashioned mowers re-sharpened at home repair shops. Conversely, make a date to get rid of the tools that you do not need anymore, or those that are well beyond repair, and stick to this date.

Designate Space and Corners

Once you have cleared out your shed, it is time to organize for maximum efficiency. You want to make your shed as user-friendly as possible. That is, ask yourself: what can I do to make my shed work for me? If you haven’t stepped foot into your shed before now, why did you avoid it? Was it too dirty, too cluttered or just too unpleasant? Use these guidelines to determine how you should organize your shed. Designate space for your tools, pots, gardening material and leave enough space so that you can easily enter and exit the shed. To prevent future clutter, set a new rule: every time you store something new in your gardening shed, one item must come out (and stay out). Make your garden shed work for you, and you will find that gardening will become much more efficient.

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Right, you’re knee deep in your garden, all engrossed and blissed out, so are you going to break the spell, get up and search around for exactly the right tool to complete what you’re trying to accomplish?

Well, if that tool isn’t conveniently to hand, then chances are, you’re going to improvise and make do with what you can lay your hands on in the immediate vicinity.

That shiny new gardening tool might look really cool, and well it’s the latest thing so you’ve just got to have it, right? Before you part with your hard-earned cash, I suggest you think long and hard about whether you’ll actually use it. Or, whether you’ll use it often enough to actually justify the expense.

It’s certainly tempting to buy all of the new-fangled gardening gadgets that you see advertised in the catalogues or at the garden center, and the advertisers will certainly do their best to convince you that you really can’t possibly do without their super-deluxe widget. But, just stop. You’ve been managing perfectly well without this watchamacallit device for a long time, haven’t you? You’ve probably already developed your very own tested way of doing whatever this device promises to do.

Now, that’s not to say that this wonder gardening device wouldn’t make your life easier or shorten the time it takes to carry out that essential gardening task. But, hey, this gardening lark isn’t exactly a sprint is it? You’re doing it because you love it, aren’t you? It relaxes you and enables you to forget the other stressful aspects of your life for a few hours, so who cares if this particular task done your very own patented way takes ten minutes longer to accomplish than it would with wonder-widget?

Be honest with yourself, if you spend all that money on this ultra-modern gardening contraption, aren’t you just going to go back to doing that task your own old way in double-quick time? And that expensive gardening device will just end up as the star item in your next garage sale.

With all that said, it’s certainly true that some gardening jobs are definitely easier with the right equipment. If you have some disability it is also sensible to get hold of some specially-adapted gardening tools to ensure that your gardening hobby doesn’t aggravate your disability.

Just be sensible and spend some time thinking about what you really need rather than emptying your wallet on something that some clever advertiser has convinced you that you want. That way your garden shed won’t end up being some kind of garden implement museum, full to bursting with shiny tools that never get to justify their existence with some honest toil.

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