If you’re newer to gardening, though, how do you know what tools to use to get started? The wrong gardening tools can lead to frustration and wasted efforts, whereas the right gardening tools can help you to get your garden planted, weeded, watered, pruned, and harvested with ease. Here we’ll cover the best garden tools to help your beds flourish.
Best garden hose reel: Giraffe Retractable Hose ReelBest pruning shears: KOTTO Four-Pack Kit with Storage BagBest wheelbarrow: Gorilla Carts Heavy-Duty Poly Yard Dump CartBest shovel: Radius Garden 25202 Pro-Lite Carbon Steel ShovelBest budget: Sleek Garden Eight-Piece Gardening Tool Set
How we chose the best garden tools
Not all shovels, wheelbarrows, and shears are built the same. That’s why we looked at reviews and recommendations, and performed heavy research, in order to curate our list of best garden tools.
What to consider when buying the best garden tools
The best garden tools depend on your growing environment and needs. For indoor gardening, the only gardening tools you may need aside from a grow light are pruning shears or scissors to harvest what you grow. Likewise, container gardening outdoors doesn’t require much equipment beyond a hand trowel, watering can, and pruning shears. But if you’re gardening in beds outdoors, you’ll likely need more of an array of lawn and garden equipment. First, consider how you’ll set up your garden: planning out your space is an important first step that will have a lot to do with your garden’s success. If you’re clearing a patch of grass and plan to plant a vegetable garden, first pay attention to the sunlight (or lack thereof) and make sure you’ve picked a spot that will get ample sun during the day, not shaded by too many trees or shrubs, backyard furniture, or a fence. Also, make sure you’re not cutting it close to any underground utility lines or irrigation lines. Then check your soil: You can buy a soil test kit to help determine the soil’s pH and how much organic material is in it. This helps you figure out what kinds of fertilizer or additives your yard soil might need to make it suitable for gardening, and you’ll probably want to add topsoil. You’ll also need to ensure the spot you’ve picked will get enough water—which you can handle with sprinklers, drip lines, or manually watering with a hose. Once you’re ready to plant, you’ll need a tiller (electric or manual), hand trowel, shovel or spade, garden fork, hoe, potentially some cages or trellises (if you’re planting climbing plants such as peas or tomatoes), and gardening gloves, along with some other optional items such as the best wheelbarrow, garden rake, and kneeling pad. Consider a storage shed to store all of your tools and keep them protected from the weather.
Why the best raised garden beds may change your garden tools lists
The best raised garden beds take some of the chore out of yard gardening. The soil gets better drainage because it’s not walked on and because you can start fresh with loamy, loose soil rather than trying to till and work with the compacted soil you have in the ground. Next year, rather than having to do any serious tilling, you can likely just add more topsoil. Depending on how high you make your raised garden beds, you can also take a lot of the strain out of your back, neck, and legs if you don’t have to bend over so far or kneel on the ground to weed, plant, prune, fertilize, and harvest. Hunching over to hand-weed can cause ongoing pain that you may not even notice while you’re working … but you will notice afterward. Other benefits of the best raised garden beds include the ease of maintaining your borders—grass and weeds don’t creep in the sides. You may still get weeds (they do travel on the wind and deposit themselves in the soil even at significant heights), but they’re lessened and generally easier to pull because they can’t spread and root too deeply. You can also cover your raised garden bed easily prior to the growing season to kill off any weeds that may have found their way in. When it comes to the best raised garden beds, you can make your own, or choose from pre-crafted raised beds that are made from cedar, galvanized steel, or plastic. Some are meant to lie directly on the ground and others are on legs that you can set on a patio or deck. A raised garden bed can be an important piece of garden equipment, and a complement to the best garden tools we’ve selected here.
The best garden tools: Reviews & Recommendations
Make gardening faster and easier on your body with our choices of the best garden tools.
Best garden hose reel: Giraffe Retractable Hose Reel
If you’ve ever used a vacuum with a retractable cord, you know that it’s hard to go back to winding long cords up yourself. The Giraffe is the best garden hose reel because it’s self-winding and can lock at any length you need. It’s 100 feet of ½-inch hose, wall-mountable with just four screws and anchors, and it’s a sturdy unit that retracts slowly so you won’t hurt yourself.
Best pruning shears: KOTTO Four-Pack Kit with Storage Bag
When it comes to garden clippers, you’re likely going to want more than one type. For delicate work, like cutting herbs, you need something precise and narrow, whereas you’ll need something more heavy-duty with thicker branches and stems. The best pruning shears depend on your job, but versatile bypass pruning shears that make sharp, clean cuts are generally a must-have for any garden, and clippers or scissors are easier to work with when you need precision so you don’t wind up cutting things you don’t mean to cut. So the best choice is … all of the above, which you get in this convenient gardening kit.
Best wheelbarrow: Gorilla Carts Heavy-Duty Poly Yard Dump Cart
The best wheelbarrow for your garden is one that can easily and efficiently haul what you need it to, and this Gorilla cart fits the bill: It has a padded handle that can be pulled by hand or converted to hook up to a tractor or ATV. The difference between a traditional wheelbarrow and a dump cart is that the latter has a simple mechanism to release the tub vertically to easily dump out whatever you’re carrying—rocks, logs, dirt, what have you. This dump cart is versatile and easy to maneuver.
Best shovel: Radius Garden 25802 Pro-Lite Carbon Steel Shovel
With a carbon steel blade and fiberglass shaft, this lightweight, well-designed shovel comes with a lifetime manufacturer guarantee. It’s made with a round handle and a large, lightly cupped blade to help reduce strain on your wrist, arms, and hands. It’s the best shovel for a variety of conditions, from sandy to clay.
Best budget: Sleek Garden Eight-Piece Gardening Tool Set
If you’d like to make your purchase decisions a little easier, go for this eight-piece gardening kit, which includes highly rated bamboo and rayon gardening gloves, a hand rake, hand cultivator, transplanting hand shovel, hand trowel, pruner, gardening kneeling pad, and carrying bag. The tools are aluminum with rubberized handles. Considering the budget price, you’re not sacrificing quality—all the tools in this gardening kit are solid quality and not prone to rust or fall apart.
Final thoughts on the best garden tools
If you’re going to put the time and effort into growing your own plants, investing in the best garden tools you can afford can make your job easier and help you achieve better results. Once you have the right garden equipment for the job, you may find that your hobby becomes a better stress-buster and your harvest becomes more abundant. Happy gardening!
