February 5 , 2007

Did you clean your garden tools this past fall? If you didn’t and you can still get to the garden shed, cleaning your tools is a great way to help them last longer and help make your gardening easier. It only takes a few minutes. I might also suggest you bring them into the heated garage. It sure is cold out there! An article in Fine Gardening magazine contains a great recipe for success in tool cleaning. It reads as follows:

“…Fill a 5-gallon bucket with ordinary sand and saturate it with three quarts of motor oil. Clean the surface dirt off hoes and shovels, and then briefly dip the head of each tool in the oil-and-sand mixture. Use a rag to remove the mixture. The sand acts as an abrasive medium, scouring the metal. Some gardeners advocate leaving tools buried there all winter, with their handles protruding and heads safe from rust. I used to do this but stopped because the motor oil seems to weaken wooden handles right at the socket. A clever variation on this method is to omit the oil and use dry-river sand or white silica sand….” (Fine Gardening, March-April 2004)

Here’s to cleaning the tool shed and readying your tools for the spring dig!

Happy Gardening!

Wendy Jasper
Horticultural Advisor

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