Soil is the basis of farming. It delivers water and nutrients to crops, physically supports plants, helps control pests, determines where rainfall goes after it hits the earth, and protects the quality of drinking water, air, and wildlife habitat.The goal of soil management is to protect soil and enhance its performance, so you can farm profitably and preserve environmental quality for decades to come.
There are few vegetables that you can grow in your garden that are as rewarding as tomatoes. Although tomatoes are easy …
Starting to build a new garden isn’t difficult. Most people begin by going out into their yards with a shovel or garden tiller, digging up the dirt and putting in a few plants. Following the organic and natural methods, add a little mulch or compost, and you’re well on your way to make good soil for your homegrown vegetables. But in the long run, the success of your garden depends on making healthy garden soil. The more you can do to keep your soil healthy, the more productive your garden will be and the higher the quality of your crops.
In the last issue, I discussed the value of soil care methods that imitate natural soil communities. These include protecting soil structure, feeding the soil with nutrients from natural and local sources, and increasing the diversity and numbers of the microbes and other organisms that live in the soil.
In this article, I’ll focus on specific ways to achieve these goals. There are many ways to do this, but they all revolve around two basic concepts: For more fertile soil, you need to increase organic matter and mineral availability, and whenever possible, you should avoid tilling the soil and leave its structure undisturbed
1. Oscillating Hoe
This is another tool that needs no introduction on this site, the oscillating hoe is a long handled garden hoe with a swivel head. The long handle enables you to hoe an entire raised bed from the same position and the swivel action head cuts on both the puch and the pull stroke sharpening itself as it goes.
2. Golden Gark
The Golden Gark is a multipurpose garden maintenance tool, it is a rake, shovel and soil sift in one. This lightweight tool is ideal for clearing up weeds or fallen autumn leaves and much more.
3. Heavy Duty Hoe
Another appearance by Chillington tools here on our list. This time it is the heavy duty garden hoe. This hoe is ideal for breaking new ground and will do so much easier than a spade or shovel. Like the fork hoe, it’s blade is set at a right angle to the handle allowing the lever action to minimise effort required.
4. Garden Secateurs
Any garden needs constant maintenance and a good garden secateurs is an invaluable tool to have for any pruning jobs. The secateurs we recommend is the Classic Felco no4, they are affordable bypass secateurs that will last a lifetime.
5. Garden Knife
A small knife is often needed in the garden for cutting string, sticks and flowers, trimming fruit and vegetable plants and many other jobs. It’s a good habit to carry one in your pocket or garden trug. Opinel knives have a very sharp blade that folds into the wooden handle. These knives were ranked in the top 100 most beautiful products in the world by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
6. Fork Hoe
Chillington Tools (the crocodile range), need no introduction on this site, they are the cornerstone of our garden tools list. Chillington hoes all have their digging blades at a right angle to the handle, in the traditional ‘Mattock’ style, this gives better leverage making digging alot easier. The Chillington ‘Canterbury’ fork hoe/azada breaks up soil faster, and with less effort than any other digging fork.
7. Garden Trowel
Hand tools like garden trowels and hand forks are some of the most used gardening tools, so the best trowel should have a comfortable handle with a well fitted blade that won’t come loose after time. This transplanting trowel from Burgon & Ball has a comfortable ash timber handle with a stainless steel blade with planting depths etched into the face.
8. Digging Spade
A decent digging spade is always needed in the garden, in my opinion the best one to use is a stainless steel type. Regular spades easily rust and the soil tends to stick to them whereas a good stainless steel spade stays smooth making digging that much easier.
9. Dibber Dibbers are useful for making planting holes for seeds, bulbs and seedlings. We have a nice selection of oak timber dibbers as well as some stainless steel ones, the timber ones have calibrated rings to indicate depth and take the guesswork out of planting.
10. Wheelbarrow
We have a selection of galvanised and hard plastic wheelbarrows available. A good barrow is strong yet light enough to easily transport when full. Also, why not try one of these water carrying bags for wheelbarrows, they are the only way to transport water in a barrow without spilling it.
