Talking to your nursery staff can help them determine the goals of your garden and the type of soil you’re working with, which can change the type of tools you buy. Here’s a good selection on display at City Farmers Nursery in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood.

Best Gardening Tools For Vegetable Garden

If you’ve ever bought or rented a house, you’ll remember the first one, especially if you got your first garden as an adult. Once the garden is established and you love it, what do you need to maintain it? If you have space but garden potential, what do you need to get started?

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For Erin and Jacob Wood, that’s the last question. The couple, who live in a small apartment on the Pacific coast, bought their first house in Tierrasanta at the end of May.

Their new yard isn’t huge, but it has three separate areas with plenty of room for them to be creative, with an area already raised for raised beds for the tomatoes and cucumbers they plan to grow. plant. Erin also likes herbs, and Jacob thinks about fruit trees. And they need a place for their chocolate lab puppy Daisy to play.

Now their question is, what tools do they need to start planting and then maintain this new environment?

“We have one hand,” Jacob said. “That started with our portfolio of outdoor tools. We had a pointed shovel and a pair of little shears that we used to cut flowers and one of those things with three ends that could tear the dirt. And this tool is like a metal hook about 10 inches long. I think it has to do with pruning. Oh, we have gardening gloves, but I got the cheapest one.

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The knowledge base of independent local nurseries can be invaluable, nursery experts agree. At Family Urban Farmers Nursery, the staff works with customers to help them find the best tool for the job, according to operator Sam Tall.

Another question for Jacob is how to choose the tools he knows he needs to invest in when there are so many to choose from.

“When can I buy the $6 version and when can I buy the $40 version?” want to know. “Because there’s always this huge array. I know the expensive version might last longer – at least I think – but I don’t know if it works any better.

When her restaurant customers closed, Farm to Fork San Diego founder Trish Watlington cultivated new customers and gardeners.

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Trish Watlington has a lot of gardening experience, decades since she and her husband Tom bought a 32-acre home in Maryland with a barn, garden, woods and sheep that started early. When they moved to Indiana, they had a large garden that supported the couple and their son. Today, Watlington, who owns the Red Door restaurant in Mission Hills, runs Two Forks Farm on a third of an acre on Helix Mountain and works with area restaurants and independent chefs.

“Our first garden tools were basic: shovels, rakes – leaves and metal – hoes, trowels and basket loads,” he recalls. During that time, he bought well-made tools at farm sales and estate auctions.

Made of aluminum, the trowel is rust-resistant, and the sleek, ergonomic handle is user-friendly and prevents it from getting lost in the garden.

He has a list of tools he can’t live without. Being a small man, he found a short-handled, narrow shovel more useful than a large shovel. He’s a big fan of the hula hoe, a miracle weeding tool that, as he calls it, “makes the weeds go faster.” He has two handheld hula hoes and a long-handled hula hoe for his raised beds. The shape of the head of the instrument is a sharp open metal square. If you pull it out of the ground under a patch of small weeds, it will cut the root so the weeds don’t grow.

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Watlington also said that if you’re going to plant any kind of tree, you need a miter saw and a knife. For flowers, trees and vegetables, you need scissors for cutting. His favorite is grape clippers – a sharp one with a small handle.

Sam Tall is the go-to man at City Farmers Nursery for advice on choosing garden tools. “The first thing is to take some soil to the nursery, not to the garden center, and take pictures of where you’re working,” he says. “A gardener can do a soil test to find out what your soil is and how to change it to choose the right tool.”

“They’re cheap, you can sharpen them, and they’re good for delicate work and delicate vegetable crops,” he explained.

He also always has an inexpensive serrated knife for garden tasks, from picking pumpkins to cutting twine. And a 1 or 2 gallon pump sprayer, which he described as a godsend.

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Sam runs Family Urban Farmers Nursery in Tall City Heights. He always asks about garden tools. And, like other independent nursery owners, he and his staff enjoy guiding customers to the best tool for their situation. His method is to take a step back and figure out what you are working with and what you want to do in your garden first.

“The first thing is to take some soil to the nursery, not to the garden center, and take pictures of where you’re working,” he says. “A gardener can do a soil test to find out what your soil is and how it changes to choose the right tool. If you are in a valley area, you probably have sandy soil . Or if you’re on the side of a mountain, there are a lot of rocks to tackle. It even makes a difference in the type of shovel you buy.’

As for shovels, most people prefer a shovel with rounded corners rather than a square one for digging, which he says is more for picking up or clearing material from a truck. Tall advises you to find stepping stones so that you don’t damage your foot when you push the shovel into the ground. He prefers wooden handles.

“Metal handles bend and are very heavy. The fiber handle is not very effective,” he explained. “If you are working on rocky ground and the shovel handle is broken, is it a replacement wood or glued to the shovel head, do you have to buy a new one by the way?”

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Think you need a hoe? He is tall and thinks that instead of a hoe, he should use a shovel. He likens it to the Swiss Army knife of tools, noting that most hoes only come about 4 inches deep. With a shovel, you can go down to a depth of one meter.

“They had a tough game after our first rainout.” “You get a bunch of seeds that grow. When the weeds are about 2 inches tall, you take a hula hoe and drop them.

Vintage tools are on display at City Farmers Nursery in City Heights, where there are plenty of new tools and staff to help customers find the perfect fit.

Tall also recommends an adjustable rake. It can widen to about a foot and a half to cut through a lot of foliage, and narrows to about 6 inches wide to let you get around plant material in tight spots. In addition, it does not require a lot of storage space. As for hard rakes, he said they are for more specific projects, such as leveling an area. Leaf spikes are more versatile.

My Must Have Garden Tools

Then there are small hand tools, such as trowels of various widths, that help plant pots or dig holes in loose soil for small plants (look for aluminum with a stainless, shiny ergonomic handle. garden); a harvesting knife (such as Watlington’s Serrated Knife); rotary pruners with crescent blades that grip your cut (Tall recommends the Corona brand); and harvester – a double-ended hoe that can be used for everything from weeding and transplanting to breaking up compacted soil.

Recommended large hand tools on display at Urban Farmers Nursery include (from left) a hula hoe, an adjustable rake, a rotary pruner/cutter and a wooden-handled spade.

When it comes to manual watering, yes, a good watering can is always useful, but instead of buying a small nozzle for your hose, get a watering can. They are useful not only for watering hanging plants, but also for easy access to the soil of plants in pots and on the ground, instead of watering the leaves of the plant and possibly encouraging mold .

When it comes to water, Tall is the defender