Useful Gardening tips from the professionals...

It has just occurred to me that it might be useful to start a discussion for us professionals to share a few useful tips with our wider readership. Now I'm not suggesting that we all give away all of our secrets but a few gentle pointers might be of use to everyone. I'll start the ball rolling with a couple of suggestions of the sort of thing I'm thinking of...If you've ever done a lot of planting (for example multiple hanging baskets), you will know that your hands always get little grains of soil or compost worked into the folds in your hands - particularly around the knuckles and the fingers. Normal soap and water doesn't usually get rid of this. I have found that Crabtree & Evelynne 'Gardeners hand scrub with pummice' does a much better job at getting the soil grains out of the skin. I have found that the one on a tube (as opposed to the soap bar with pummice) works really well. Follow it up with the 'Gardeners hand recovery' to repair very dry hands.35mm film canisters are very useful for storing seeds of all sorts. Seeds tend to be sold in little sealed packets which are often quite easy to spill; transfer the seeds to film canisters, write the seed type and expiry date on them (use a pen suitable for writing on plastic like one of the widely available CD label markers). You will find it much easier to store the seeds for future use and they will be much easier to handle.One of the most useful tools that I always have in my toolbox is a set of sharpeners. I use a set of three diamond-impregnated sharpeners bought from screwfix.com for under £10, although more robust versions are available from the USA at a premium. The screwfix set come in coarse, medium and fine grades and are very useful for sharpening a variety of tools including secateurs & shears, small rotary mower blades and even hoes. With a set of these sharpeners, a pair of cheap secateurs from Wilkos (at under £5) can perform just as well as a pair of Felco number 2 secateurs (around £30-40) for occasional to frequent (and possibly even daily) use.If anyone else has little useful tips that they'd like to share, I'm sure we'd all be happy to read them.

A pair of welders' gaunlets, which can often be found on the tool stands at various shows, or your local tool shop. Much tougher than normal rigger gloves and they extend up the arm. Whilst a little unwieldy, use when cutting back particulary vicious plants, e.g berberis. Your arms will thank you!

Rubber dipped 'bricky' gloves seem to fit more snugly and offer more dexterity than many gardening gloves. Not only are they often much cheaper, and hard wearing. it's a lot less galling when they wear than an expensive pair of leather gloves that only last a day. Available from builders' merchants

A colleague of mine uses latex gloves as under gloves to keep his nails clean.

Finally if you get a blister, use a couple of strips of zinc oxide tape to cover it (assuming of course you are not allergic to the stuff ) - if tender put some antsceptic cream on first, with a layer of micropore tape before the zinc oxide tape. Whaterver is causing the blister will then rub on the tape and not your skin. This can also be done before you start work to prevent them in the first place.

Replies

PRO

Phil Voice June 1, 2008 at 9:25pm

A wallpaper stripper is great to keep handy when digging heavy soil for scraping clay off of your spade.

A rub of candle wax on the handle, where your lower hand passes through,of a hoe helps to stop blistering.
- Andrew Fereday > Phil Voice June 1, 2008 at 9:37pm
  
  Speaking of candles - rub one across the side of the blade of your saw when cutting through particularly tough branches. It helps to keep the saw moving with less effort. It's especially useful if you're trimming off part of the stump on a christmas tree to fit into a stand.
PRO

Phil Voice June 1, 2008 at 9:42pm

Yep good one.

If you have drawers in your potting shed then wax helps to make them run smoothly too.

White vinegar is great for soaking rusty tools in to eat off the rust and get parts moving.

Vegetable oil is better to oil blades of secateurs with as well.
PRO

Phil Voice June 6, 2009 at 8:16am

Vinegar is a great organic weed killer.

Cutting back herbaceous perennials when they are a third of their normal height will give you less leggy and wid resistant stems and later flowers.
Simon Knops June 6, 2009 at 9:29am

A pair of welders' gaunlets, which can often be found on the tool stands at various shows, or your local tool shop. Much tougher than normal rigger gloves and they extend up the arm. Whilst a little unwieldy, use when cutting back particulary vicious plants, e.g berberis. Your arms will thank you!

Rubber dipped 'bricky' gloves seem to fit more snugly and offer more dexterity than many gardening gloves. Not only are they often much cheaper, and hard wearing. it's a lot less galling when they wear than an expensive pair of leather gloves that only last a day. Available from builders' merchants

A colleague of mine uses latex gloves as under gloves to keep his nails clean.

Finally if you get a blister, use a couple of strips of zinc oxide tape to cover it (assuming of course you are not allergic to the stuff ) - if tender put some antsceptic cream on first, with a layer of micropore tape before the zinc oxide tape. Whaterver is causing the blister will then rub on the tape and not your skin. This can also be done before you start work to prevent them in the first place.
Nick Steele June 6, 2009 at 1:44pm

Philip Voice said:
Vinegar is a great organic weed killer.

Cutting back herbaceous perennials when they are a third of their normal height will give you less leggy and wid resistant stems and later flowers.

This is known as the Chelsea Chop - because you're supposed to do it at the time of the Chelsea flower show. Customers nearly always reefuse to do it on the grounds that they "could never be so cruel" but it really is an excellent way to stop plants flopping later in the season.
pete June 6, 2009 at 3:21pm

Like that Chelsea Chop one --- not all that professional this, but topical for me at the moment, and for anyone who doesn't know that has found it awkward to water a growbag - cut the bottoms off pots, cut the round holes in growbag and scrunch pots in a little, ideal for tomatoes especially, as you can then earth them up.