Making gardening easier

Back or neck pain, muscle stiffness or arthritis cause undue fatigue when gardening, but well-chosen gardening tools can make a great difference. Generally, the lighter the tool, the better. Handle the tool to check that it is well-balanced and comfortable to use. Choose tools with wide and preferably well-padded handles. Additional foam padding can be added if needed. Check that the length of the handle on spades, forks and hoes allows you to work in an upright position, because good posture is vital to comfortable gardening. Steel tools weigh more but are ideal on heavy soils. On sandy loam soils, choose lightweight carbon-fibre or aluminium tools. Semi-automatic spades can be very helpful. A lightweight draw hoe is useful for chipping weeds. Long-handled, lightweight hand trowels and forks are available for smaller jobs, and an arm support can be attached to the handle. A pair of secateurs with a comfortable grip is essential. Avoid any with a difficult catch or that cause stress when repeatedly opening and closing the blades. Pruners should preferably be the ratchet type, which cuts with a few easy progressive squeezes. Use power tools when appropriate. It takes much of the effort out of jobs such as hedge trimming and garden edging. Kneeling pads are a necessity, too. They are available as individual knee pads or as mats. Also, rather than a single-wheeled barrow, choose a sturdy two-wheeled barrow, which is easy to steer even when fully loaded. Try to vary gardening activities to avoid strain, particularly those tasks that involve repetitive movements, such as digging, even if it takes a few days to complete a particular job.

Caring for garden tools

Dry storage – first scraping damp soil from metal – ensures a long life for garden tools. Even better, oil or grease metal parts after removing the soil. Do this every time you put a tool away, not just before winter. Keep hoe blades sharp by filing once or twice each season. Secure the head of the hoe in a vice, positioned so that you can sharpen the angled side. Use a broad file and make sweeping strokes in one direction only: away from your body. Remove burrs on the other side with a few light strokes.

Hiring a motor cultivator

It is not worth buying a motor cultivator for the average garden, but it may be worth hiring one for the day. There are two types:

Power-driven tines Cultivators- with power drive to the tines only have tines mounted under or in front of the engine. The spinning tines draw the machine forward while digging the soil. The more robust ones are ideal for digging a new kitchen garden.

Power-driven wheels and tines- A cultivator with power drive to both wheels and tines has its tines mounted at the rear, under a hood. It minces the soil finely and is ideal for seedbed preparation, but small models are not suitable for initially breaking heavy soil– especially as they don’t dig very deep.