Top 6 Essential Home Garden Tools to Make Your Life Easier

essential home garden tools
When it comes to gardening, having the right tool could make or break your experience. Whether you’re a first-time or seasoned gardener, these 6 tools are the ones you need to have a great garden.

1. Pruners

The garden pruner in hands of woman
Good ones. Make sure they’re sharp, and make sure you like the way they fit in your hand. The pruners do part of the work, but if you’re uncomfortable using them their effectiveness is immediately reduced and so is your positive experience.

2. Trowel and rake

Set of small wood and steel garden implements arranged in a neat row on a background of rich brown earth ready for transplanting seedlings in the spring with a rake trowel and probe or small augur
Sometimes the traditional tools are the best. The rake will help you loosen soil while the trowel is perfect for digging and moving plants. What’s better than the traditional tools? How about having them hooked together—a trake? A trake is more ergonomic, and just like other tools, make sure you test it before you buy it.

3. Compost

Two styles of compost bins: a rolling composter and a compost tumbler.
Whether you make a compost tumbler yourself or you opt to buy one, if you want compost and you want it quickly, say 3 to 4 weeks, then a tumbler might be your best option. If you’re not in a hurry, a bin might be the right choice for you, but make sure you compare both and choose the right compost option for your needs.

4. Mattock

one dirty gardening hand tool o
This tool does it all. It helps you weed, chop, dig, and loosen soil. You might wonder the benefit of this tool over something like the trowel and rake, and the answer is, depending on who makes it, the mattock can be heavier which makes it more effective as it can help get the roots of plants more easily.

5. Garden gloves

Gloves for working in the garden, vegetable garden in the dry
If you don’t want to get pricked by thorny bushes and weeds, garden gloves are a good idea. There are different types of gloves for different purposes, so depending on what you need out of a glove, you might want to shop around.

6. Apron

Woman dressed in apron with raspberries holding a pink watering can in the garden
Having a good apron will keep the dirt off of you and allow you to keep your tools close at hand. Your jeans never have enough pockets when it comes to tools for gardening.

Bonus Tool: Journal

Keeping a gardening journal will allow you to look back and understand what plants grow best from season-to-season. Whether you describe it, or draw it, you’ll thank yourself for keeping one.