12 Essential Gardening Tools for Beginner and Advanced Gardeners

As a new gardener, it can be really overwhelming when you're trying to just get started growing and you see these million and one different types of gardening tools that you should be buying for the garden. So in today's video, I'm going to show you the very few essential garden tools that you need. Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening, where it's my goal to help you grow a greener thumb, but in a simple way without getting overwhelmed and spending potentially way too much money on these gardening tools. Now I have, I'm obsessed with gardening tools. I probably have 30 plus all these different esoteric ones for these specific use cases in my garden, but you definitely don't need that when you're starting out. So in today's video I want to talk for the smaller scale gardener first. These would be your base set of essential tools, maybe three or four. But then as the video progresses, I'm going to add in some of these longer handled tools, which you'll see in a second. And then at the very end, I will show you a simple way to keep them nice and sharp that doesn't cost much at all. So without further ado, cultivate that Like button for the sharpest pruning shears in the world. And let's get into the video. The first tool we need to start out with is probably the most obvious and you may already have it. It's just a simple pair of pruning shears. But pruning shears, there are many different types. This one is a bypass pruner. It's from Corona Tools. In fact, Corona Tools is a new partner here at Epic Gardening. Really excited to work with them. A SoCal company that's been around for decades and decades making amazing tools. So thanks to them for sponsoring the video. Now what we're looking at here is a classic pair of bypass pruners. And when I say bypass, what I mean is this blade, the cutting blade, passes by this section right here. There's another style of pruning shear called anvil, which certainly works. It's not to my personal tastes. I find that one pair of bypass that'll last you a really long time is probably all you need, especially if you're not looking to spend a lot of money. I like to get something that's got some kind of comfortable grip because this probably is the tool that you're going to be using the absolute most and you're pressing down with a lot of force, especially when you come through these larger twigs and sticks and branches. You just want something nice and comfortable. So very simple tool to use. You want to come around. I've got a sprig of kale here, clip it at the base. And that's obviously a very simple job to cut, but this thing will cut through at least a half inch to three quarter inch piece of organic matter, like a smaller stem from a tree. So bypass pruners, absolutely essential. Get a comfortable pair and maintain it. And I have a whole video on how to maintain your tools so they don't rust and they stay useful for a really long time. Before we get into essential tool number two, one quick note, you can grab some, I call them micro-tip pruners. This is a very fine point for a more delicate pruning job, I suppose. Come in on this cilantro, chop off the bolting stems and extend its life just a little bit. You could do that with the pruning shears if you really want to slim your tools down, like I said. But I find having something like this is really nice and handy. But that brings us to number two. We have our cutting jobs done in the garden. We need a digging slicing tool and there is really no better tool in my estimation than this, which is a trowel, but it's sort of modified. It's a Hori Hori style trowel. So it can dig. I can brush my straw mulch away. I can just plop right in and I can make any sort of hole that I need to make. But at the same time, you can see if you look closely, there's a depth meter on here. So let's say you wanted to plant something an inch deep. Well, you know, you can just do that, bring it aside and you're good to go. You can go all the way down to four inches if you want. But the thing that really seals the deal for me and why it's essential is this cutting blade or this serrated edge here just adds a little extra versatility to it. So let's just imagine this rosemary was a big bush, roots were extending all throughout this bed and it was just too big. I wanted to move it maybe in ground. Well, what I could do is I could come in with my Hori Hori style trowel and just serrate out some of those feeder roots and then just pull this right out. So another great use, again, called a Hori Hori, lot of different versions of this, probably one of the more popular garden tools out there and absolutely essential for a beginner gardener. One of the most essential tools you're going to need is a way to water the garden. And there is no simpler and more versatile way to water than by using a simple hose and an adjustable hose nozzle of some kind. Now I have a bit of a fancy one here with this retractable hose link hose reel. Really like it. Is it essential for the beginner gardener? It's not essential, but it is really nice. Now, why an adjustable nozzle? Number one, because I can do a shower spray. So I can come in on this mustard and just gently, once I turn it on, there we go, spray it right here at the base. But really what this allows you to do is hand water your garden, which seems like a garden chore. But in fact you're going to learn the most about your garden and the problems you might run into, the issues, nutrient deficiencies, pest problems. When you're out here in the morning just inspecting, you know, as I move this plant to the side to water, I actually notice that I see a little bit of nitrogen deficiency on this Chinese cabbage here and I may have let it go a little bit too long. I wouldn't notice that if I had my drip irrigation system set up or my automated sprinklers. Nothing against those methods, but this is going to be one of the absolute cheapest ways that you can get your garden watered. I'll probably do a whole video on hoses cause there's a lot to learn about hoses. But I do want to show you just a quick little teaser on another one of my favorite watering tools that a beginner would really like. And it's nice and helpful for getting into smaller spaces. So with the water wand, which I have to say I do find essential, at least for me because I'm quite tall and somewhat lazy. So when I water, it's very easy for me to just reach and water. So what I'll do here, is pop it on and you have a beautiful stream of water. It puts out actually quite a bit. And so I would say, you don't want to just broadcast this all over everywhere. For me, it's nice to water targeted. For example, here in the dragonfruit section, that's about an inch of water, right about there. And now I don't have to water this dragonfruit for at least another week or two. Really nice. Not essential, quite handy though. A cutting implement, a digging implement, and a watering implement. More or less all you need as a beginner gardener, especially in a small space. But as we move up to larger scale gardens or if you do want to expand your tool set a little bit, you really have to have a shovel of some kind. Now there are really too many types of shovels if you ask me. The round point shovel is probably going to be your most versatile one. This one I particularly like because it's got a little pushing section right here. So if I really want to get down into this perennial bed here, I can move my mulch aside. Although there will be a tool for that in just a second. And you know, this is hard clay here. So if I have this little presser, I can just boom, slam it in and I'm good to go. Now the reason I like the round point, first of all, flat point is going to actually get you more material. If you're shoveling material, a flathead shovel is actually better for that. Round will still do the job, but a flathead shovel can't really dig an effective hole. And the main purpose of a shovel in my estimation is to be able to dig a hole. And so that's why I recommend this one if you are adding one shovel to your tool kit. Now I have four shovels because again, I'm obsessed with tools. But again, basics, basics, basics. The round point shovel is going to be your best bet. This one has a metal handle. You can get one that's a little bit more lightweight with a fiberglass handle. But again, I like these comfort grips as well. You're going to be using it probably quite a bit. So you might as well make it nice and comfortable. The next essential tool in my estimation for a larger scale gardener is a rake, but not just any rake. You want, in my opinion, a bow rake. This is a heavy duty tine. It's not like the one you see there, which I'll talk about in a second. Still a great tool. I find this one to be a lot more useful if you are slimming down your collection of tools. So why? Because I can move pretty much anything. I have a pile of compost here. I can spread this out nice and easy. I can actually flip it around on this backside if I really want it to smooth a bed out and just gently drag and smooth the bed out after I've raked some new compost over it. But, you know, for me in this big property here, what I like to use it for is moving chips and moving mulch around and smoothing the surface. So I come in and I just pull and push. It works both ways really easily and you're in a good spot. Now why do I like this one over a fan rake, which is what this one is right here? I don't have anything against a fan rake and this is a fantastic fan rake, but it's a lot flimsier and it's for lighter materials. I don't have a lot of lighter materials here. I live in San Diego. I don't get a lot of fall leaves. I wish I did. It's gardener's gold. But I could use this. I can move around some of these pine needles. I could lightly spread it over a bed, no problem. But I find that I can also do that with a bow rake. So if I'm choosing one singular type of rake to use, I'm always going to go with a bow rake in my garden. At the larger scales, you need an efficient way to move stuff from point A to point B and you need an efficient tool to move something in to this wheelbarrow right here. So starting out with this, this is a 10 tine ensilage fork, also called a manure fork. You can get one that's five tines, eight tines. I like the 10 because of this. Look at that. I can pull way more mulch sitting on top of this fork than I could with a shovel of any type. And I can do it really quickly. So I can come in, dump, come in, dump. And that's because the tines will penetrate a mixture. It's specifically good for somewhat chunky materials like this mulch, this wood chip mulch here. It'll still even shovel up compost though, especially semi-unfinished compost. But you need something to move it around in. Now I've tested out a bunch of different wheelbarrows. I've broken five maybe in my life, I would say. It doesn't feel good. I switched to something extremely heavy duty and a little bit bigger. So this is a 10 cubic foot wheelbarrow with two front wheels and every piece is made out of either steel or wood, except for this, which is a heavy duty plastic. So for me, that makes a lot of sense. And the reason why is because if I'm going to dump this wheelbarrow, typically you've got one wheel in the front, right? And as soon as you start to dump, especially if it's full of heavy stuff, maybe 150 pounds worth of material, you're putting a lot of pressure on the frame as soon as you turn it either this way or this way. And that's bound to happen. With this, it's evenly balanced on both of those wheels. And when I want to dump it, I can just flip it right over like that and pull it right back. And I haven't put any stress on the frame and it's going to last me a really long time, which is what I want out of these tools for myself and for you. If you're spending the money, you want to maintain it. You want it to last a really long time. Here we have my favorite gardening tool of all time. Certainly the most satisfying one that I've ever used. Now it goes by many names. I feel like it's almost a mythical tool at this point. This one from Krona Tools is called an oscillating hoe. I've seen it called a hula hoe, an action hoe, a stirrup hoe, a scuffle hoe. It doesn't really matter. We just need to know how it works. So long handled tool. I recommend getting something with a solid handle here cause you are applying a decent amount of force and you'll see that in a second. But what you have is basically a trapezoid, a sharp trapezoid. And what ends up happening, and I'm going to show you this, is you can pull weeds. You can basically slice them off right at the soil surface on the pull and also on the push. Hence the name oscillating. It goes back and forth and it does the job. So these potatoes that I have right here, you can see I've mulched directly over where I've planted the potato. But in the little miniature pathways, I already have some grass sprouting from, at least we got some rain, but the rain also caused some weeds to sprout. So I want to show you right now just how easy and how satisfying it is. This will decimate weeds at the soil surface. You can kill weeds completely, but if they do propagate back from a underground root or stem piece, like a rhizome, they're still going to come back, but it can cut your weed pressure down significantly. So let's see how this works. So you can see, I have this little weedy section right here and there's a little wiggle room, there's a little play, which is what you want with a tool like this. I personally find that there's more effort and more results coming in on the pull than the push, but you can certainly do both. What I have is this little potato bed and I want to put a little bit of downward pressure on this and then just kind of scuffle it back and forth like that. Look at that. It just slices right through. And what we see here is all of those weeds have just been sliced right off. And underneath we have relatively untouched soil. Now I didn't get this section right here, but you can see, we've significantly decreased the weed pressure. Now, is it going to stay down? Probably not because these are grasses and they will come back up, but it's a good way to clear things out and it's exceptionally satisfying to use. Next up, if you have something that a pruning shear will not cut through, then you need to add some kind of lopper to your toolkit. So I have a very basic one right here. This is a bypass lopper. So remember with the pruning shears, you had the anvil or the bypass. It's the same with this. So this blade will go past the stop. I prefer that. Now there are some fancier models. This one is actually kind of cool. If you need extra height, you can extend both of these arms out like this. Pretty neat. And then this one, boom, this is more of an anvil style. It still goes bypass just a little bit, but again, different model. You can keep it very basic with one of these bad boys. The reason why I like this, number one, it's actually quite a bit easier to use. You have a lot more leverage here. So you can prune through things with ease like this citrus tree that at some point I need to rehabilitate and I will do it for the YouTube channel here. But it's just so much easier to deal with something. And you've got a long-handled tool so you can reach out and you can get up. I mean, for me, I can probably get up about 10 feet or so and extend my reach. Very, very handy tool. Absolutely a necessity if you've got an orchard, if you've got ornamental bushes or shrubs. So here's a perfect example of why loppers are such a great tool and versatile tool. So we have our loquat tree right here. This branch is not only dead, but also crossing underneath the canopy. And I can just very easily come in and snip that off and boom, I've freed up the canopy. There's a little bit more light. It's a lot more healthy and I didn't have to do anything besides just quickly snip it off. Well, if you've stayed to the end, I do have a couple extra epic bonuses for you. This is actually one of the handiest tools. I wouldn't put it in the essential kit, which is why it's at the end of the video, but it is a folding quicksaw or a pruning saw. So you just pop this, pull this out. And I've made short work of branches pretty much this long. Or I come through and I cut out clumps of weeds. Now, again, when you cut out a rhizomatic style of weed, it doesn't actually prevent it from growing back, but it does cut it down quite a bit and at least slow it down. Very handy, very satisfying tool to use. But a lot of you have asked, okay, cool, I have my tools. How do I actually take care of them? And I did a video on how to de-rust and clean your tools and protect them. But I did not do one yet on how to sharpen them. And so I have a very simple little implement here. It's got a little protective cover on. It's just a tool sharpener. This one's again from Corona. So all you do, so we have our pruning shears here. They could probably use a little bit of a tune-up as we move into spring. You come in, you've got your cutting or your sharpening piece on this edge here and you just do that. Kind of like sharpening a knife in the kitchen, right? Just do that. And then, oops. And then also on the other side, come in and do that. Problem solved. You're done. That's all you have to do. So that's really it as far as sharpening your tools. Garden tools. Like I said, I'm obsessed with them and I have more than I care to admit in the shed behind me. But as a beginner, you don't need all of those. You need some essentials. If you're a small space gardener, your cutting implement, your watering implement, and something to dig in the ground and move the earth around a little bit. Of course, as you advance or you scale up, then some of these longer handled tools that we talked about work really, really well. But it really is about what tool gets the job done and what tools are so versatile that you can use them for one, two, three, four different purposes. So you get the most bang for your buck. Again, thanks to Corona for sponsoring this video. Going to be working with them a lot in 2021. Absolutely love their tools. And until next time guys, good luck in the garden and keep on growing.