Tool School Tips For Getting Those Shovels, Rakes And Hoes Ready For The Season

It’s time to turn your garden soil to prepare it for spring planting. But first, maybe you should make sure you have the proper tools and that they’re ready to dig, chop and cut.

Do you even know where your tools are?

If you were conscientious last fall, you carefully cleaned them and put them in the garage or shed. But even the most professional gardener may accidently leave a tool or two somewhere in the garden, says Christine Mulberger, owner of Los Robles Garden Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“Now is the time to walk your garden and plan what you want to plant and in the process look for those lost tools,” she says.

Whether in the shed or lost among the leaves, your tools probably need some cleaning and sharpening. It’s also a good idea to tune up the lawn mower and have its blades sharpened, says Angie Harding DeMasters, who operates the Lawnmower Hospital started by her grandfather in 1955.

While a lawn mower has a much smaller engine than your car, it also needs attention to such details as oil, air filter and carburetor, she says.

Here are some tips they offer for getting tools ready for spring:

Hand tools

* To clean and oil shovels and forks, fill a bucket with sand and pour in about a quart of old motor oil. Shove the blades in and out of the sand. The abrasive sand scrapes away dirt and rust, and the oil lubricates blades and tines.

* To sharpen a shovel, hoe, loppers or pruning shears and lawn mower blades after cleaning, use a file. Stroke the same angle as the bevel from the back of the blade.

If you don’t own a file or lack the expertise to sharpen tools, professional services will sharpen tools and blades for a nominal fee. They also put an edge on chain saws and hedge trimmers, which have serrated blades that require special sharpening tools.

* Rub the wooden handles of shovels, hoes and rakes with linseed oil to prevent drying and cracking, which lead to splinters.

* Rub blades of pruning shears with vegetable oil to prevent rust.

* After using shears or loppers to prune a tree that has cancer or blight, disinfect the blades before using them on the next tree to avoid spreading the disease.

* If you tend to lose track of your tools, wrap bright orange or hot pink tape around the handle. Bicycle or tennis racket tape also can be used to wrap handles if they have become rough.

* If water hoses are damaged with permanent kinks or holes, worn out attachments or missing washers, check local hardware stores for repair kits.

* If your shovel or rake is broken beyond repair, turn the shovel blade into a garden border and attach a tined rake end to the wall and hang tools, jackets or hoses on the tines.

Lawn mowers

Give mowers a tuneup in spring and winterize them in fall.

* Winterizing includes draining and flushing the tank of leftover gas. If gas was left in the tank during the winter, it probably has broken down into a goo that can clog the carburetor when started in the spring.

* Change the oil at least once a year.

* A tuneup also includes replacing the spark plug and air filter.

* Sharpen the blade. A blade needs sharpening if the grass tips turn brown, indicating they are being torn off rather than sliced cleanly. Depending on the amount of mowing done during the season, the blade should be sharpened between every couple of months to once a year.

* Sharpen and tune up such gas-powered tools as hedge trimmers and chain saws.

This sidebar appeared with the story: IN THE SHED A look at basic gardening tools

Shovel: Has a dished or concave blade that is rounded or slightly pointed at the tip. It usually has a long handle but may have a short handle. Good for moving piles of dirt, sand or other materials as well as digging.

Spade: Short-handled with a flat, square blade. Good for edging beds, digging holes and turning over soil.

Fork: Has four large tines good for turning and aerating soil, breaking up large hunks of dirt and working in organic matter and other soil amendments.

Hoe: Good for chopping out weeds and cultivating soil, digging furrows or scraping the soil surface. Most have a basic straight edge and square blade placed at a slight angle to the long wooden handle.

Flexible rake: Also called a leaf rake, it can have long, flexible flat plastic or metal tines in a fan shape with a long handle. Good for gathering or brushing up leaves, debris from lawns, flower beds and walkways.

Steel rake: Also known as a garden rake, it has 12-14 short tines mounted on a steel bridge at the end of a long handle. Use it to dress and smooth prepared soil and break up clods and separate small rocks and debris from dirt.

Trowel: A basic hand tool with a short handle, it comes in several sizes of slightly cupped blades slightly pointed at the end for digging small holes.

Other important garden tools include: weeder, gloves, watering can, sprayer, pruning shears and saw, lopper (akin to shears), wheelbarrow or cart and sprinkler attachment.

Knight Ridder Tribune