{"id":14186,"date":"2013-05-02T01:21:46","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T08:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=14186"},"modified":"2013-04-29T11:21:36","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T18:21:36","slug":"garden-tool-maintenance-12-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/gardening\/tips\/garden-equipment-tips\/garden-tool-maintenance-12-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Garden Tools &#8211; Maintenance Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When the growing season comes to a close there are garden maintenance jobs that can make next years gardening even more pleasurable. Good maintenance will extend the life of your tools and save you money.<br \/>\nAn appropriate and well maintained tool will do a better job than making do and mending. From my experience these are some top tips for maintaining your tools during autumn.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/4834927910\/\" title=\"clippers by brianpettinger, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4104\/4834927910_303a90f1ef.jpg\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" alt=\"clippers\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Tool Maintenance Tips<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li>Start with the best quality tools you can afford and look after them.<\/li>\n<li>Keep your tools clean and do not put them away wet.<\/li>\n<li>Maintain your <a href=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3767\">Secateurs <\/a> by sharpening and oiling.<\/li>\n<li>Keep a sharp edge on cutting blades including spades. It is worth investing in a sharpening stone (they are quite cheap and easy to use).<\/li>\n<li>Wipe off any sap that gets on the blades or edges of your tools. Sap can be very sticky and build up a thick layer on lawn mowers or secateurs unless you are careful.<\/li>\n<li>I like to oil wooden handles to keep them smooth and discourage cracking. Sand off any rough edges and use a good furniture oil.<\/li>\n<li>Set up a place to store your tools when not in use. Small tools can be strung &#038; hung from a frame in the shed rather than lumped together in a pile where they may get damaged.<\/li>\n<li>Do not leave standing water in metal buckets, watering cans or wheelbarrows to avoid rust or frost damage.<\/li>\n<li>A brightly coloured handle or bright marking will help you find that trowel that you have just lost. A dab of paint may do the job<\/li>\n<li>Where needed I wrap &#8216;gaffa tape&#8217; around rough handles to improve the hold.<\/li>\n<li>Straighten and bent tools and replace any badly damaged tools.<\/li>\n<li>Learn how to select a special tool for a garden job<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qvFLD-6TI5Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Using the right tool for the job makes a gardeners life easier. However many gardeners take delight in making do and mending &#8211; on balance I like a mix of both methods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Garden tool maintenance   can make next years gardening even more pleasurable. Good maintenance will extend the life of your tools and save you money.<br \/>\nAn appropriate and well maintained tool will do a better job than making do and mending. From my experience these are some top tips for maintaining your tools during autumn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-garden-equipment-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}