The winter months often provide us some respite from the garden. There are still jobs to do like clearing the gutters of gardening buildings and mulching around trees and shrubs. But it can give us time to plan and prepare for the seasons ahead. This gives you time to to check your equipment and check it’s all in working order. It’s a great opportunity to sort out your essential garden tools list.

Essential Garden Tools List

Gardening Gloves

Protecting your hands when doing gardening work is important. Whilst we might like to do some delicate jobs gloveless, feeling the dirt on our fingertips, gardening gloves offer protection. No one wants blisters and they’ll soon appear after a few hours of digging without gloves on. Get yourself a decent pair which will last. How about a gardening apron too?

Hand Trowel

A hand trowel will help you with many gardening jobs. From digging spaces for plants to refilling holes. It will even help you with edging work and getting rid of weeds. It’s a great addition and even a key part of your garden tools list.

Pruning Shears

Cutting back branches from trees and bushes is a constant battle in many gardens. With the rainfall we get in this country, branches sprout out from all over the place almost overnight. A decent pair of pruning shears will help you keep on top of them. It’s a great idea to sharpen them just before springtime as it’s a difficult job to do with blunt blades. You might need a pruning saw for thicker branches.

Weeder

You could use a hand trowel for weeding but there is a great tool to help keep your soil weed free. Polluting your garden with weed killer chemicals isn’t ideal so removing the entire weed including the root is perfect. A decent weeder will help you do this in just one movement.

Shovel & Spade

You should have a decent curved shovel in your shed. It will help with difficult digging jobs such as planting trees and slash the time of working over lots of soil. It’s great for breaking up soil in the spring ready for planting. You could also do with a flat spade for other jobs. For decent edging you need a flat spade to work with, making the ideas in your head easier to bring into reality. It’s a little bit more precise than a curved shovel.

Digging Fork

Breaking up your soil is much easier with a digging fork. It helps you get deep into the soil and loosen, turn and mix that soil. Perfect for compost and that mulch we mentioned further up too. Add a digging fork to your garden tools list.

Garden Hoe

Gardening can be backbreaking and the garden hoe was invented to help look after your back. It will help you dig shallow trenches for planting your seeds. Perfect if you’re working in an allotment or adding a vegetable patch to your outdoor space too.

Lawn Mower

If you have lots of grass you’ll need a decent lawn mower to help keep it in shape. Your lawn is perhaps the first area to be judged so you need to keep it in tip top condition. The size of your patch of grass will help you decide upon electric or petrol powered lawn mower. You might even want a sit-on mower if you have a large garden.

Knee Pads

Knee pads or a kneeling cushion will help keep you in that little bit of comfort as you enjoy working in your garden. Kneeling down puts lots of pressure on your kneecaps and it can be uncomfortable. Some decent knee pads on your garden tools list will help you out.

Hosepipe or Watering Can

One of the essential parts of gardening is water. You need to be able to move it around and water your plants. A sprinkler system might not be possible in your space so a decent hose pipe which won’t leak hooked up to the mains is great. A watering can is perfect too!

So there you have it, an essential garden tools list which will see you through most garden jobs. What else would you add? What can’t you do without in your outdoor space? Let me know!