August 2022 Best Practices For Healthy Garden Checklist
Credit: University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources
August Checklist
- Maintain drip irrigation for most effective water use: check for leaks or missing/broken emitters.
- Begin sowing seeds for cool-season crops, such as beets, turnips, cabbage, radishes, broccoli, peas, kale, collard, spinach, arugula, and lettuces.
- Water container-grown citrus trees once a week, or more often if the weather turns hot.
- Remove runners from strawberries to promote buds for next year, and to have a stronger mother plant.
- Plan your vegetable garden for crop rotation to avoid re-planting the same types of plants in the same area two seasons in a row.
- Prune fruit trees to control height, maintain shape and eliminate suckers.
Top 10 Best Gardening Tools | Top Rated and Reviewed
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There are certain tools that every amateur horticulturist finds to be essential. There are so many tools and tricks to consider that it can be difficult to remember everything. So, to help you find the best tools for all of your upcoming gardening projects, we asked experienced gardeners about the gloves, boots, scissors, hoses, and shovels they rely on to grow healthy, beautiful, and delicious plants. Below are the twenty-six (10) gardening tools that experienced gardeners use the most. This list of ten is for harboring your first garden so that you can be equipped throughout the year and make sure you have everything you need.
You DO NOT need to BUY everything (however, it is recommended) needless to say that having a list that you can refer back to makes life so much easier.
1. Fiskars Ergo Garden Tool Set
These are three of the most essential of all gardening tools. And they come packaged together in a convenient, economical set. It includes a garden trowel for excavating shallow holes and trenches, a three-tine cultivator for loosening up hard soil, and a measured transplanting trowel for digging holes to precise depths, which is especially important when planting bulbs.
Other gardening toolsets to consider buying:
2. Martha Stewart Hori-Hori Knife
A great garden knife can handle a lot of chores, from digging to slicing through roots and chopping weeds. A hori-hori is a lightweight tool with a stainless-steel blade and a full tang (that is, the stainless steel extends into the handle so the blade won't bend or break). One edge of the blade is serrated for sawing, and the other is razor-sharp for cutting. It even comes with a leather sheath for storage.
Other gardening knifes to consider buying:
3. Magid Glove & Safety Handmaster Rose Pruning Gardening Gloves
If you’re new to gardening, you might not consider gloves an essential tool, but your hands most certainly will. The gloves are made of synthetic leather that’s puncture-resistant and much more supple and comfortable than animal leather. The elbow-length gauntlet cuff shields your wrists and forearms from injury, and extra padding is provided across the knuckles and fingertips.
Other gardening gloves to consider buying:
4. Felco Ergonomic Hand Pruner
Swiss-made Felco pruners keep your landscape on the cutting edge. The long-lasting steel blade can be re-sharpened or replaced, and other replacement parts are widely available. The pruners make clean, smooth cuts up to one inch in diameter.
Other gardening hand pruner to consider buying:
5. Muck Boot Women's Muckster Ii Mid Ankle Boot
Gardening can quickly wreak havoc on your shoes, and getting a pair of waterproof boots will save you heartache in the long run. A love for gardening can now extend comfortably into the winter with these warm muckster ii designs.
Other gardening boots to consider buying:
6. Cate's Garden Hand Weeder
For tackling a lot of weeding, the least fun but necessary chore of gardening, you'll want this tool that makes it easier. Constructed of an ash wood handle and rust-resistant stainless steel, this hand weeder makes it easy to get weeds on the first try thanks to the V-shaped fork tip and curved base that allows for better leverage.
Other garden hand weeders to consider buying:
7. Bully Tools Heavy Duty Sidewalk and Ice Scraper
In the wintertime, you use an ice chipper to chip away at any ice that builds up on your steps, sidewalk, or driveway. But you can also use the steel chipping head to dig a garden bed by pushing it through the grass and down into the dirt around the perimeter of the square you want to dig. Then you can easily pry the square up to reveal the dirt beneath.
Other gardening ice chippers to consider buying:
8. Japanese Hand Garden Hoe
The Japanese Hand Garden Hoe is sharpened on both sides to make gardening chores quick and easy. This tool removes grass, weeds and works especially well when weeding under mulch.
Other garden hoe's to consider buying:
9. Tracey Garden Smart Shovel
It has a commercial-grade, 14-gauge tempered steel blade and a virtually indestructible fiberglass handle reinforced with steel. But what makes this shovel unique is the built-in soil grater conveniently positioned at the base of the handle.
Other garden shovels to consider buying:
10. LEMY Portable Garden Kneeler and Seat
Your knees will quickly let you know that becoming a gardening aficionado is no joke. There's no way to avoid spending time on the ground when you're tending to your garden, but you may as well be comfortable while you do it. This foldable, padded stool works as both a kneeler and a seat and will quickly become one of your most-loved gardening necessities.
Other garden kneelers to consider buying:
VIVIDMax Grip Clogs
The go-to unrivaled comfort full slip-on rubber clog shoe that you're sure to feel protected and supported with day after day. You've never seen it! But we VIVIDLY got your back! Shop the max footwear shoe out of your imagination. Be sure to notice 14 traction blocks and 26 ventilations equipped for roughed surfaces.
