• I was pointed to these tools by a comment from a visitor too our site - thanks Zoe
• Get the key tools right to make your garden easier and more pleasurable.
  • A Spade that is light enough for your physique and a stainless steel blade will not get claggy with soil.
  • Secateurs for snipping, pruning and cutting. Have one good pair for important work and another for the ‘grunt’ jobs that are a bit tougher. I have a good bypass (scissor type) pair for pruing and an anvil pair for hard work
  • Lawn mower electric or petrol depending on the lawn size. As the adverts said ‘its much less bovver with a hovver’.
  • Trowel made from forged steel will stand hard work and cut into soil easily
  • Wheel barrow with a pneumatic tyre carries heavy loads and I prefer it too the ball type wheel
• Buy the best quality you can afford if you are going to make a lot of use of the tool. It is surprising how many tools don’t get used all that often so plan out what you need. Over 80% of the work will be done by the items in the list above.
• Pay a tree surgeon to cut hedges, prune and trim trees. They will have the right equipment andwill side away the waste.
• Maintain the tools you have:
  • Put linseed oil on wooden handles to keep them smooth and in good condition
  • Store metal wheel barrows upside down to help slow rusting from the rain
  • Keep blades clean and honed I use a wet stone to remove dried sap and keep sharp
  • Power tools need a cutout and an extension lead if your garden is large
  • Spray tools with WD40 or similar to keep rust free and moving

If you do not want to use chemical sprays on your vegetables and plants how will you protect your crops.

Organic Tips

• Well you could try mix your own but test them on single plants first, monitoring effects for a couple of days.

• Several recipes are available but I use a very weak solution of Comfrey water as a foliar feed. I put a good bunch of leaves in an old water butt for a fortnight then dilute the liquid to a weak tea colour.

• For insect infestation try a stew brewed from rhubarb leaves and a bit of vegetable oil. Crush the leaves then poor boiling water over it and let is soak for a day or two then drain off and dilute to look like weak tea and spray of water it on after adding the oil to help it stick to the plants.
• Recommended for Roses is a pyrethrum base home made from Chrysanthemum cinerariefolium or Dalmatian chrysanthemums. They are safe to use on vegetables and they are safe to eat after 24 hours. (Do wash them).
• The soil association will allow farmers to use copper compounds on potatoes and sulphur isn’t totally banned.

Types of Sprayer

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Another wet and rainy day and all I can think about is the compost heap (well may be not all). We all slip up, drop clangers and get it wrong so I thought I would list some of my own errors or lash-ups.

Gardening is like that so I try not to beat myself up when things go wrong. There is always another season and a worse clanger elsewhere.

Soggy Compost

• An over wet compost heap will smell something rotten, really stink and I mean badly.
• Nutrients will be washed out at the bottom of the heap and lost.
• The composting process will be slowed almost to a stop.
• I wish I had covered my heap before all this heavy rain.
• Good compost needs air so it may help to turn the wet heap.
• Belatedly I have been putting some torn up newspaper in the heap as roughage and to soak up some excess fluids.
• Because this time I have built the heap on soil I can reclaim some of the goodness by taking a level of soil when I spread the compost.

Construction Issues

• In the past I have relied on a heap with no sides just a pile. This flattens out and spreads without ever getting to a good heat except perhaps in the center
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Make your own seed planting tape. Mix some flour and water or non-fungicidal wallpaper paste and squirt a line along a length of paper towel. Sprinkle fresh seed into the goo and place the tape in the seed bed covering to the required depth. The seeds can be seen and get a damp start. Some seeds like carrots can be germinated in the paste then squeezed out of a tubeing ina fnie line.

Make a seed shaker for fine seeds like Livingstone Daisy by firstly mix the seed with dry sharp sand. Then put the mix into a kitchen shaker, salt cellar. perforated lidded tin or similar. When sowing the seed will go further and there will be less thinning out.

To make Willow water containing growth hormones collect new tender shoots, tips and leaves from willow trees. Cut into small pieces and steep until the liquid becomes tea coloured and strain. Use the fluid for soaking the end of cuttings prior to planting or for watering new plants.

A Spade cleaner and tool shiner couldn’t be easier. Fill a bucket with sharp sand mixed with some oil. Clear off the worst of the soil and plunce the spade trowel or fork repeatedly in the mix to clean and shine. Have a can of WD40 handy for spray oiling other tools.

Make your own planting device from a PVC pipe cut to a convenient length of say three foot six sharpen one end and use to draw furrows drop seeds don the tube and turn over to back fill. Other bodging tools can be made from kitchen implements even an old ironing board can become a portable potting bench.

Bellis or Daisy is recognised by it’s flat rosettes of oval leaves and small white yellow eyed flowers. They tend to form colonies that hug the ground to smother out nearby grass. From the boots of the ‘My old mans a dustman’ song, ‘it takes such a job to pull them up that he calls them daisy roots’ the best treatment is a selective weed killer that may need a couple of applications. Alternatively each root can be dug out by hand.

Dandelion leaves are recognised by long hairless coarsely toothed leaves that form large rosettes. They form dense mat to suppress the nearby plants or grass. The flowers are bright yellow and self-seed freely from Dandelion clocks the globular seed heads we blew as children. The long tap root will regrow unless removed completely or killed by systemic weed killer. Spot treat the weed with a touchweeder or selectively apply a weed killer. Burning and boiling water on the leaves may have some impact on crazy paving but i don’t find it works on lawns.

Buttercups stunt nearby plants and make the lawn look uncared for. remove by hand or normal weed killers.

Clover has shamrock shaped leaves (not real rocks as you find in rockeries). Clover stays green in drought and as a leguminous plant its roots provide nitrogen for grass but the pink or white flowers are intrusive. As clover thrives on poor soil feed the lawn and use a grass box on the mower to remove seed heads. Lawn sand may be used to treat the problem.

Plantains have large leaf rosettes that can smother grass and compete for vital nutrients. Fork out by hand or treat individually.

Annual meadow grass hosts harmful eelworms and is hard to control with weed killers. The leaves are short tufts and strap shaped with tiny coarse flowers. in summer they can die back leaving patches. Feed the lawn well and use the grass bow when mowing. really bad investations may need re sowing or turfing.

Moss is a dense low growing mat of greenery that affects badly drained lawns. It is too short to be cut by a mower but a lawn that itself is cut too short can attract moss instead of grass. Feed the lawn with a weed and feed fertiliser or use lawn sand containing a moss killer. Scarify and improve drainage by forking over the lawn

Lawn Tool Tips

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Lush growth in May and June will create abundant growth and plenty of colour. But by mid summer and early autumn a shabbiness of middle age may have crept into your borders. However a border that has been carefully staked and tied in spring and summer will not lapse into slovenly habits.

Tips for Using Canes

• It makes sense to support single-stem plants like Hollyhocks, Delphiniums and Gladioli early in the season but it is never too late. When tying stems to a cane make a loose figure-of-eight with the twine or a tight knot will damage the the stem.
• You can make your own ‘pea sticks’ from Hazel, Elm suckers, Beech or even Fir.
• If you want to grow your own canes then the bamboo Phyllostachys nigra produces unobtrusive black canes.
• Use thick canes if possible - buy 8 foot canes and cut in two with a fine hacksaw at a joint
• Freshly bought canes can be cut with secateurs
• Single canes are not appropriate for multi stemmed plants as the string just makes a noose for the plant to flop into. Put two canes at the back and at least one in the middle then a web of string can provide several supports.
• If your string slips down the cane your effort will be wasted. use a clove hitch knot slid down from the top of the cane and keep the know just above a joint.

Off the Peg Plant Supports

• Circular wire grids too set above a plant for it to grow through are available but are not cheap. The green plastic covering on the wire isn’t totally natural in appearance.
• Interlocking stakes with a hook to link to the next stake helps make a support shape appropriate to the plant can work quite well. I use these for Peonies.
• Semi circular hoops for the border edges are available to hold plants back from lawnmowers
• Part off the peg and part DIY you can use a wire grid supported in 4 corners to cover a wide area of the herbaceous border.
• Obelisks and a variety of cast iron towers are available for training climbing plants

Special Staking for Special Plants

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This is not to be confused with your own garden compost made from decomposed plant matter. Commercial compost is the range of products sold in plastic wrapping in garden centres, DIY shops and sundry retailers. The contents of these types of compost vary and can affect the growing result considerably. All have a base which has no or negligible nutritional value plus additives that make it useful for a specific purpose.

Typical Compost Constituents - Base

• Peat base of small fibers of bog peat is excellent for many purposes but now seen as none ecofriendly due to the over extraction of peat and lack of replenishment of the resource which isn’t sustainable.
• Coir as a peat substitute for the base. Coir is made from the hairs & fibers of coconuts and such compost are widely available. There are special compost products approved by the vegan society from http://www.fertilefibre.com/vegan-approved.html
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Hot compost heaps are just that, hot, they can be so hot you can’t keep your hand in (though why you should want to put your hand in the middle of a compost heap I am not sure). The heat is generated by the decomposition process helped by all the biological activity. Microbes, worms and insects need food, air and water to generate this activity. They feed on the plant matter or one another so that takes care of food. Much garden refuse contains enough water but if the compost is dry or the weather dries the compost out then some extra water can be added.

Turning The Heap

• To get air into the compost as it rots down the heap needs to be turned after an initial decomposition period say 8-10 weeks
• Special ‘Tumbler compost makers’ and spinners are now available so that compost can be turned within a plastic drum. You turn the drum daily or weekly to aerate the rotting compost. This speeds up the composting process significantly.
• Turning the compost stops the top forming a crust that fails to rot
• The compost should be turned so that any compost at the sides or back is brought into the middle so decomposition is even and homogenious
• Turning the compost gives a chance for excess water to be redistributed so the heap doesn’t smell
• If the heap is large turning the top two thirds on to a separate pile may leave one third compost ready to use.
• Compost compacts and reduces in size by at least a third as it rots. Without turning it can be more compacted than your own soil.

Acclimatised to Global Warming?
Easter snow flurries and April frosts have hampered planting so far this year, but gardeners will be hoping that the May bank holiday weekend offers some respite from the unseasonable cold and rain. Gardens will catch up from the colder than average start to spring. In fact we have been getting ahead of ourselves in recent years with earlier and earlier starts to the year and warmer than average spells in May and June.

To coin or corrupt an old phrase ‘Ne’re plant out till May is out’. Or if in doubt protect young seedlings from cold and frosty weather. I am referring to the month of May not May blossom the flower of the Hawthorn (Crataegus Monogyna) which is often used to celebrate May Day.

Temporary Greenhouse Capacity

Greenhouses will be full to bursting before it is safe to plant out so consider other temporary protection. First though make sure you use staging and shelves to optimise your main greenhouse. Don’t forget to water plants left under staging. You can hang some plants from the roof of many greenhouses.

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My daughter has just moved into a house that was unoccupied for 12 months. The lawn was really a meadow with what looked like several years of neglect. I used my petrol rotary mower ‘Champion 375′ on the highest cutting setting. The varied height ability was very useful. After raking some dead straw from the grass it was cut again at a lower setting.

When I have left it  for a  week to settle then it will be cut on progressively lower settings.  Fortunately I can also use a  mower with a heavy cylinder to level out some of the little bumps. Shortly a weed and feed application either granules or liquid will probably be applied. I am not rushing this as I want to get the lawn into better shape without chemicals.

The problems  then start encouraging my daughter to take over the maintenance.  How will my daughter cut her new lawn without the tools? Well I recommend a lawn mower from the cheap end of the range. Tesco sell a Flymo Micro Lite Electric Hover Lawnmower  at£34.99. The lawn isn’t too large and a short extension flex will cope.

This hover mower is made from lightweight polyproperlene and features plastic blades with a 28cm cutting width.  This 1000w electric lawnmower has a hover action that makes it easy to manoeuvre when cutting and also has 2 cutting heights.  There is a fold down handle for easy storage and is quite light.