165 Garden Tool Care & Selection

Yes, it is a little late for a New Year’s Resolution, but here’s one that is better employed late than never: take better care of your garden tools. And, It’s not just keeping them clean. On today’s episode of Garden Basics, Debbie Flower gets into the how’s and why’s of properly maintaining your garden tools…including storage and sharpening advice…and yes, the proper cleaning of your tools. Plus, we have tips for choosing quality garden tools to begin with.

We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. 

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Pictured:
Bypass, Anvil Pruners

Links:
Subscribe to the free, Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter
Smart Pots
NC State U: Tips for Cleaning Garden Tools
Home Depot: Tips for Removing Rust From Garden Tools
Bypass vs Anvil pruners
Felco’s How To Clean and Sharpen Pruners Video
Felco Sharpening Tool
Hori-Hori Knife
Fiberglass Handled Shovels
3-in-1 Oil

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Chapters

• 1:19 Garden Tool Care Tips
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• 13:58 Subscribe to the Garden Basics Newsletter

Transcript

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, Episode 165 - Garden Tool Care TRANSCRIPT

26:54 
Published Feb. 4, 2022

Farmer Fred  0:00  

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot. 

Farmer Fred  0:32  

Yes, it is a little late for a New Year’s Resolution, but here’s one that is better employed late than never: take better care of your garden tools. And, It’s not just keeping them clean. On today’s episode of Garden Basics, Debbie Flower gets into the how’s and why’s of properly maintaining your garden tools…including storage and sharpening advice…and yes, the proper cleaning of your tools. Plus, we have tips for choosing quality garden tools to begin with.  We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots.  And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let’s go!

Farmer Fred  1:17  

It's wintertime. Have you taken care of your tools lately, your outdoor garden tools? Let's find out what you should be doing. Debbie Flower is here, our favorite retired college horticultural professor. I think that's one thing, Debbie, that people do scrimp on: it's tool care. They may tend to leave their tools outside and not clean their tools when they're done. And if they are cutting tools, they may be, let's say, a little behind as far as sharpening those tools.

Debbie Flower  1:49  

I'm guilty of that last one.

Farmer Fred  1:51  

 I have to say, I find it fun. It's stress reducing. Just get out the sharpener and  save your blades. Let's talk about the importance of why we want to clean tools. I'm cheap. I want to buy a good tool to begin with. And I want it to last, right?

Debbie Flower  2:10  

You do. And  tools are made of metal. In general, the good tools are. And metal can rust. So you don't want that to happen.

Farmer Fred  2:18  

Right. When you have mud encased on the metal parts of your shovel, for example, that can lead to rust.

Debbie Flower  2:24  

Yes, it can. And any contact with other things, like the floor, can allow moisture to be trapped. On a concrete floor, for example, moisture moves up through a concrete floor, if it's a pad on the ground. And that can cause the tips of a shovel to rust.

Farmer Fred  2:41  

That brings up a very good point, then, as far as storing your tools. If you're storing tools indoors, then what do you do? Hang them?

Debbie Flower  2:48  

Yeah, hang them.   Or you can make tool storage devices in which the tool sits on the ground, but it's the handle that touches the ground, not the metal blade. 

Farmer Fred  3:01  

Is that a good thing? 

Debbie Flower  3:02  

Yes, it's better than the other way around.

Farmer Fred  3:03  

Let's talk about handles. You can get them in wood, you can get them in fiberglass, I kind of lean towards fiberglass because there's less care involved.

Debbie Flower  3:11  

Yes, when wood handles get wet, they can get splintery and rough. You can get splinters. And so, it may take some care if your handle has gotten to that point, or if you inherited some. And as an aside, you can sometimes find really high quality tools at estate sales from people who have had them for decades, like you bought them. Very good, high quality tools and then kept them for their lifetime. And now that person is selling them. 

Farmer Fred  3:41  

So probably their children that are selling them. 

Debbie Flower  3:43  

That's a possibility as well. And they may not be in the best of shape, but you can bring some tools back to life. I have some that I got from my parent's house. So the handles are kind of rough sometimes and they're wood. So you need some fairly fine grit sandpaper, 120 or 150, and sand it all down until it's very smooth. And then you use boiled linseed oil to soak those handles for about 15 minutes. Rub off the excess and that should revive a wooden handle.

Farmer Fred  4:11  

Do you boil linseed oil or does it come boiled?

Debbie Flower  4:14  

It comes boiled. That's what you buy.  

Farmer Fred  4:17  

Good. I would be I would get in big trouble if all of a sudden I was filling up a good pan on the kitchen stove with linseed oil.

Debbie Flower  4:24  

Yes. That would not be a good thing. No, you buy boiled linseed oil, but that's for wood. 

Farmer Fred  4:31  

Are there any specific tips for fiberglass handles?

Debbie Flower  4:34  

I don't know any, do you? 

Farmer Fred  4:36  

You just keep them indoors, basically. And like you say, hang them upside down. Makes sense. And I like to hang them so that they're completely off the ground.

Debbie Flower  4:47  

Yes. Me too, with hooks.

Farmer Fred  4:49  

It's a neater look. Doesn't take up that much space if you got the right hooks. Let's get back to cleaning the muck off of the tools, especially shovels. Man oh man, if you're dealing with mud or caked-on dirt, it can take a while to clean it. So I've just gotten in the habit of when I'm done for the day with the tools, I turn on the hose, on the jet nozzle, and rinse off all the metal parts. And if that doesn't get everything, I have a barbecue grill brush, that I have dedicated to the garden tools that's hanging there in the garden tool shed. And I will basically clean the rest of the gunk off that way.

Debbie Flower  5:30  

I don't use the brush as much as my hand, I put my hand on the soil and rub that mud and put the water running over it and it comes off. I have one shovel that's particularly annoying in that the part you step on is a rolled-over piece of metal. And on the back of the shovel mud gets caught in that role. And I often have to take another tool. It's often a Hori Hori, which is a lovely Japanese design digging device and get in that roll to scrape out the mud. But it works. But I have to pay attention to doing that. My family is not as conscientious about cleaning the tools as I am and so I kind of have to be the tool inspector. I say, "No, you didn't get that. Take that back redo it."

Farmer Fred  6:15  

Redo for credit. A flathead screwdriver can do that job to a very good point. I would think that the thickness of the Hori Hori knife might not  fit in that roll. 

Debbie Flower  6:27  

Right. 

Debbie Flower  6:27  

In some cases it doesn't. Yeah.

Farmer Fred  6:29  

But a Hori Hori knife is really a great garden tool to have. It looks like a 10-inch dagger with a serrated edge on one side,  with a shape of almost like a trowel.

Debbie Flower  6:42  

So you can dig with it. And cut roots when you go to plant. Yeah, you dig weeds out quite effectively. 

Farmer Fred  6:50  

Exactly. And the Hori Hori knife lasts a long time. Unless your wife loses it in the compost pile.

Debbie Flower  6:56  

 I have two Hori Hori knives now,  Although I think I'm back down to one because I had one had a wooden handle, and I lost it. And so I got another one as a Mother's Day present. When I got the second one, I painted the handle yellow, because I happened to have yellow safety paint around. I needed it to be more visible. So that one, I have not lost. And then I found the first one when I was working in the yard, but then I immediately lost it again. So if I ever find it again, I will take care of the handle, I will sand it and then I will paint it and then I will oil it.

Farmer Fred  7:37  

I use yellow electrical tape. I put it in several spots along the green handles of the loppers. Why manufacturers create green handles is beyond me.

Debbie Flower  7:49  

Right, They disappear. 

Farmer Fred  7:53  

So yeah, yellow electrical tape. But usually if you go to a big box hardware store, you can usually find several different colored rolls of electric tape in one package.  Buy that and you can use the yellow and the white rolls of tape.

Debbie Flower  8:06  

Or whatever the colors are that will show up in your landscape. 

Farmer Fred  8:08  

Yes, that you can spot from a distance. That's the problem with the original handles.  You can't see them unless you're up close, they don't have any sort of contrast to them.

Debbie Flower  8:18  

So when you find them, they're often in bad shape. We've talked about the wood, but the blade itself can also be in bad shape. And that can take some washing first. Wash and dry and then clean as much of the rust off as you can. 

Farmer Fred  8:32  

How do you do that? 

Debbie Flower  8:32  

Well, I would try, I can't say I've done it, I would try steel wool to get it off. And then you need to wash it and dry it again and oil it. Commonly used for oiling tools is used motor oil, crankcase oil. And so at school, we had a big tub that had sand and crankcase oil in it. And when the students were done and had washed and dried their tools, they would just dip them in and out of this bin of crankcase oil-soaked sand, and that gave it a nice coating of oil on the blade of the tool, so that it would not rust. 

Farmer Fred  9:11  

I bet that bed was a surprise to any wandering cat that came over.

Debbie Flower  9:17  

Well it was in the shed and it was in a bucket, so I don't know.

Farmer Fred  9:20  

Okay. Motor oil.  Oh that that would be easy to do. I see that North Carolina State University has some recommendations about using the Steel Wool, like you mentioned, or sandpaper, if your tools have developed rust. And what about for those tools that may have sticky sap on them like your pruning tools?

Debbie Flower  9:38  

Yes, mineral oil will take that off your your hands as well. If you been handling a conifer, maybe your Christmas tree something with sap on it. Oil takes that off and mineral oil is recommended for tools.

Farmer Fred  9:51  

One of the recommendations for cleaning sap off is my go-to device for just doing a good general cleaning. It's a foaming bathroom cleaner. In a spray bottle, you know the one with the scrubbing bubbles. It does the job and it disinfects as well.

Debbie Flower  10:06  

Oh, wow. Yeah, that's something to think about. Especially if you're going to do a series of pruning cuts,  if you're, let's say, removing your Fireblight this winter, you want to disinfect your tool between cuttings. 

Farmer Fred  10:18  

Do people still do that? 

Debbie Flower  10:19  

I don't know.

Farmer Fred  10:21  

I know that they have conducted experiments here locally on that. And the former Farm Advisor for Sacramento County was deliberately trying to get that Fireblight pathogen to transfer to his pruners to another part of the tree, and he couldn't do it. 

Debbie Flower  10:41  

There was another professor down at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, who tried to do that for years and years and years, and he couldn't do it. Fireblight, in general, enters through the flower. Purportedly it can.

Farmer Fred  10:53  

Yeah, purportedly it can, but if you concentrate on making cuts for fireblight about 12 inches below where you see damage, chances are, you're cutting into healthy wood, right?

Debbie Flower  11:05  

So you're not picking up the right the bacteria which causes the disease.

Farmer Fred  11:09  

So that's one way to avoid the disinfecting part of the job.

Debbie Flower  11:14  

Alcohol can also be used for disinfecting, if you need to do so. I was at a commercial grower. And they were taking cuttings and they had created this special device that the workers wore on their hands. And it contained alcohol. And when they wore it on the same hand that they use the pruning tool, and they could press a button and it would flood the blade with alcohol and then they'd make their next cut.

Farmer Fred  11:37  

Well, that's a lot of work.

Debbie Flower  11:39  

Yeah,  it was a cool device. It wasn't a lot of work for the women. It was mostly women workers who use it. But for the person who created it, that would be a lot of work.

Farmer Fred  11:48  

One of the more popular disinfectants that people tend to use is bleach. And that's not such a good idea. 

Debbie Flower  11:56  

That'd be pretty hard on the metal. 

Farmer Fred  11:58  

Exactly. If you leave any of that bleach on there, it can corrode. 

Debbie Flower  12:02  

Bleach is a pesticide and it's a very toxic one to humans. It can hurt your skin and eyes. I don't want bleach around my garden.

Farmer Fred  12:10  

I guess whatever you use, you should thoroughly dry the tool before you put it away. Yeah, so that would be important. So another use for the old hairdryer. Or just take the one that's up there in the bathroom, they'll never know. Can coating the blade itself on any of your cutting tools or digging tools, the metal blade portion, coating with a light oil afterwards help? You talked about motor oil for cleaning, but what about  a three in one oil for just maintaining it?

Debbie Flower  12:41  

Three in one oil is good to use at the jaw points, the movement points, the screw that holds the two blades together on a pruning tool. Yes, three and one is excellent for that.

Farmer Fred  12:58  

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Farmer Fred  13:58  

Have you taken a look at the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter yet? There’s one that accompanies the Garden Basics podcast. It’s a deeper dive into what was discussed on the podcast, along with more great gardening information. I like to call it “Beyond the Basics”.  In the current edition of the newsletter, we fill in the gaps of this week’s podcast. From Tuesday’s Episode 164, we have more info about how to store various fruits and vegetables after harvest, winter strategies for controlling codling moth worm problems in apples and pear trees, and a picture of what a professional orchardist apple or citrus stem clipper looks like. From today’s podcast on garden tool care, episode 165, we delve deeper into how to control rust on tools, maintenance tips for garden tools with fiberglass handles, pictures of bypass and anvil pruners, and Felco’s instructions for cleaning and sharpening your pruners. You can find a link to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter in the podcast show notes; or, at Farmer Fred dot com; or, by going to substack dot com slash garden basics.  Think of it as your garden resource that goes beyond the basics. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter. And it’s free. Please subscribe and share it with your gardening friends and family. The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter. And thank you for listening.     

Farmer Fred  15:25  

Well, here's a scenic bypass for you. You talked about the screw holding together the two blades of a pruning tool. If you buy quality tools, they'll have the ability to take them apart. Put them in your vice, clean them and sharpen them. Yes, the inexpensive ones don't have that ability to take apart and by the way, we're talking bypass pruners, not anvil pruners.

Debbie Flower  15:49  

And also, if you have an inexpensive pruning tool and you go to sharpen it with a metal file, often the blade just disintegrates.

Farmer Fred  15:58  

Right. That's why people like Felco and Corona. They make special sharpening stones for that very purpose. Watch a video I'll put up a link to a video where they are demonstrating the correct way to sharpen the blade of a pruning tool either hand pruners or loppers, because there is an art to it.

Debbie Flower  16:20  

Yeah, and the number one mistake I have seen, because we did this as a lab for a couple of classes when I was teaching, a number one mistake I have seen is that the tendency is to make the sharp edge at like a 45 degree angle. That makes it very short and sharp. And that means you wear it out immediately. First two cuts, and your sharp edge is gone. What you want to do is go at a 20 degree angle, which is a very shallow angle, if that makes sense. And work that sharpening  blade that way and then do it flat on the back. There's only one side to the blade that is sharp and the other side is flat. Clean the burrs off the back. But you want it to be about 20 degrees, which is very shallow. The tendency is to go really up, on a high angle, and make a short, sharp cut. But it's too much. It doesn't last. So you want that 20 degree angle for sharpening.

Farmer Fred  17:17  

You want to get into bypass versus anvil pruners? 

Debbie Flower  17:20  

if you want to. 

Farmer Fred  17:22  

Okay, why not? If you go to just about any good nursery or hardware store, and you go to the wall of pruners, chances are, the majority of them are going to be anvil pruners because they're cheap. Because they sell a lot of them. The purpose of an anvil pruner escapes me. Other than if you're in the cut flower business and you want to stop the flow of sap out of a cut flower stem, well, use that anvil pruner. Because the blade is hitting a flat plate and that's going to crush the end of the cut.

Debbie Flower  17:59  

 If your anvil pruners are very sharp it won't crush it. There are a few people I know who love their anvil pruners, and it is because they feel they can get closer to their target location on the branch to make the cut. But they are the kind of people who walk around with a sharpener in their pocket and sharpen that blade between cuts.

Farmer Fred  18:19  

Okay, yeah. The anvil pruner is good on dead wood. 

Debbie Flower  18:22  

Yes, that's about it. 

Farmer Fred  18:24  

Yes. Dead Wood and cutting flowers.

Debbie Flower  18:26  

Yes. My grandfather was a blacksmith and he had an anvil. And an anvil is a flat metal platform in which he would hammer hot metal to make horseshoes. So the anvil pruner has a flat metal surface on one side and then the blade just comes down onto that anvil at a 90 degree angle and hopefully cuts the stem but more often than not, crushes it.

Farmer Fred  18:56  

What happens if you use an anvil pruner on fruit trees and you're just pruning your fruit trees? ... No? You don't want to bite on that?

Debbie Flower  19:06  

I don't know what you're thinking.

Farmer Fred  19:07  

What I'm thinking of is, if you use an anvil pruner to do fruit tree pruning, for example, you're going to be crushing the ends, more than likely, of what remains where you want a bud to grow. And it's going to make it more difficult for that tree to grow and reproduce correctly.

Debbie Flower  19:27  

Right. The Anvil pruner, unless it's kept incredibly sharp, tends to crush stems and that does not lead to good growth for plants.

Farmer Fred  19:36  

So what you want are bypass pruners for 99% of what you're going to be doing in the garden. A good pair of bypass loppers are all you need.

Debbie Flower  19:46  

Right. And "bypass" means that the blades "pass by" each other just like scissor blades.

Farmer Fred  19:51  

Try to find bypass loppers, though. Those are the long handled pruners. And most of those are going to be anvil pruners as well. So be careful  what you're shopping for. Plus, they won't necessarily say "bypass" or "anvil".

Debbie Flower  20:05  

No, they don't say. You have to look at the plates.

Farmer Fred  20:11  

When you open and close a bypass pruner you can see that the blade bypasses that bottom arm. Whereas, with an anvil, it is going to come right down on that middle of that plate.

Debbie Flower  20:20  

Yes. And you'll see that  anvil plate on an anvil pruner.

Farmer Fred  20:29  

Some people say well, I have a problem, you know squeezing the bypass loppers closed to cut a branch. Here's the general rule of thumb. If the branch is less thick than your little finger, use hand pruners. If the branch is thicker than your little finger, but less than your thumb, use loppers. 

Debbie Flower  20:51  

you get more tension.

Farmer Fred  20:53  

 If the branch is thicker than your thumb, use a pruning saw.

Debbie Flower  20:59  

You can look up the inch (thickness) recommendations for that, but you always carry your hands with you, so it's a lot easier to check. And the other thing about getting a good cut is that when I watch people, and I train people, they don't typically get as  close into the jaw as possible. So when I say jaw, I mean where the two blades come together. So not using the tip. The tendency is to cut with the tip, but you get more power if you put the branch you're going to cut all the way back, into the jaw. And sometimes if you flip the blade, turn the pruning shears over, cut from the bottom, then that works better too. And I think it has to do with the anatomy of the hand and where your fingers and thumb are. But those are a couple of things to try if you're trying to cut something and it's just not working.

Farmer Fred  21:55  

if you have a cut flower garden or if you just want to harvest tomatoes or peppers or citrus, you probably want to get a pair a needle nose pruners, or snippers. 

Debbie Flower  22:03  

Right.You don't always have to bring out the big guns. You can have some small snippers. They are nice, they're smaller. But they have, as you say, a needle nose tip. And so you can get into places that you can't get into as easily with regular pruners, regular hand shears.

Farmer Fred  22:21  

Our USDA zone nine problem here is harvesting mandarins in the winter time, and getting a little bit of the stem to go with it. And there's so much foliage around there. It's tough to get in there with a pair of bypass pruners and get that little quarter-inch stem. Getting in there with the snippers, with the the needle nose pruners, it makes it a lot easier. They have a wide variety of purposes, too. Do you have a favorite pair of pruners?

Debbie Flower  22:50  

It's usually the one I've just sharpened. I have about 10 pair. In the car, they're in the house, they're is a bucket of them in the garage. So, mostly Felco and corona. Yes, Corona. And they have replaceable blades, which I can't say I've ever done, replacing the blades. But it means that I can unscrew them as you were discussing earlier and take them off. It is difficult to sharpen the blade all the way down to that jaw.  Corona makes a nice little tool that I do have, a couple of them, that I do like, that gets close to that jaw. But if you really want to sharpen the jaw, you take them apart. What is this tool look like? It's a flat it's only about three inches long, four inches long, it's most and has a red handle it says Corona and then it has a metal blade that is a file and it's angled.

Farmer Fred  23:48  

Is it two sided? Is one side rough and the other side is smooth? Okay, so it's not like a sharpening and a finishing side.  You can find the sharpening stones that do that, they are ovals about that same length, three, four or five inches long, and maybe an inch wide. So they taper on either end, but there's two distinct sides to them.

Debbie Flower  24:10  

And are they stone rather than metal? 

Farmer Fred  24:12  

I'll go look.

Debbie Flower  24:14  

Because stone often requires you use moisture and that can be a problem in transmitting plant disease.

Farmer Fred  24:20  

I'm back. So here we have the Felco 903 sharpening thing. It has very distinct instructions on the back.

Debbie Flower  24:44  

That's metal. 

Farmer Fred  24:45  

Yeah, it's metal. 

Debbie Flower  24:45  

Yeah, metal is best for pruning and sharpening, too. Because there are stone sharpeners to sharpen blades, but they require moisture  in the form of water and that can lead to transmitting diseases like bacteria and fungus in plants.

Farmer Fred  25:03  

According to Felco, the correct sharpening angle is 23 degrees

Debbie Flower  25:06  

Twenty three. Okay, I stand corrected.

Farmer Fred  25:09  

Not by much. And they're saying anywhere from 20 to 30. But 23 is optimum. 

Debbie Flower  25:14  

Get out your protractor. 

Farmer Fred  25:15  

Yeah. On this card that came with the Felco sharpening tool, I don't know what you call it. 

Debbie Flower  25:21  

A sharpening file, oval file. 

Farmer Fred  25:24  

Okay, that's good. It says it has three functions: sharpening, like a sharpening stone strengthening and honing like a sharpening stone or a sharpener. Follow illustrations for full directions. Clean a dirty sharpening tool, Fred, by scrubbing it with water with added scouring powder.

Debbie Flower  25:43  

Baking soda would work well for that. 

Farmer Fred  25:45  

Yeah. So keep your tools clean like this. 

Debbie Flower  25:47  

Even your sharpening tools. Yes.  Also sharpen, sharpen the tips of your shovels.

Farmer Fred  25:55  

Yes, exactly. People forget that. shovels are cutting through dirt.

Debbie Flower  26:00  

Yes, and roots and whatever else is down there hitting rocks.

Farmer Fred  26:03  

And even your loading shovels, like your your square faced shovels. Because sometimes  that's the only shovel you have and you need to maybe dig for a border, and you want to use that. Sharpen that. 

Debbie Flower  26:17  

So other tools as well. If you do your borders by hand that tool can be sharpened. But yes, it makes it so much easier to dig to if you sharpen the tip of the shovel. I was just amazed the first time I did it.

Farmer Fred  26:28  

Yeah, take care of your tools and they will last a lifetime for your children to sell at estate sales.

Debbie Flower  26:36  

Hopefully, yeah, they'll probably have their own set by them. 

Farmer Fred  26:39  

Or they're not into gardening. Alright, we're gonna go take care of our tools. Thanks, Debbie. For all the good advice.

Debbie Flower  26:45  

Oh, my pleasure, Fred. Thank you.

Farmer Fred  26:52  

Garden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday. It's brought to you by Smart Pots. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. And that includes Apple, Iheart, Stitcher, Spotify, Overcast, Google, Podcast Addict, Cast Box, and Pocket Casts. Thank you for listening, subscribing and leaving comments. We appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai