Gayton-based gardener Jamie Marsh talks keeping tools in top condition ready for spring
In his weekly Jamie’s Little Allotment column, gardener Jamie Marsh talks about keeping tools in top condition ready for spring…
Jobs in the allotment and garden are quite sparse this time of the year. To be honest that’s quite handy, because as we all know, the hours of daylight are at their minimum at the moment.
If you’re lucky enough to have the weekend off, there are always lots of non-gardening-related jobs to do around the house.
The job I’m going to talk about this week is so important in a few ways.
Cleaning and sharpening your gardening tools is a must if you want to keep them in good condition and in good working order.
I give all the tools in my toolshed some attention, from the spade and fork to the secateurs.
I use a good stiff hand brush to clean all the soil from the blade of a spade, then check it for rust. If there is any rust, I use a wire brush or some sandpaper to remove it.
Also, I rub the sandpaper over the wooden handle, again, to clean it off. Once it’s clean I take a piece of rag with some camellia oil on it and coat the whole spade rubbing it in really well.
The camellia oil will help preserve the wooden handle and make it nice and smooth, and also repel moisture.
I do this process for all my large wooden handled tools with the addition of using a file to put a little bit of a sharp edge on my hoe so that it can cut through those weeds with ease.
Now to the smaller tools, these are normally cutting tools, tools with either a blade or a scissor action, secateurs and pruning snips are used so much in my garden and allotment, which takes its toll on them.
As before with the large tools, giving them a good clean is the first thing to do, I use a thing called a “crean sap eraser”, and it does exactly what the name suggests.
As well as removing the sap which had accumulated on the blades it also removes surface rust which might have formed.
The eraser is slightly abrasive and needs to be wet either with water, or, I again use the camellia oil which works so well.
Once the blades are lovely and clean, it’s time to give them a good sharpening.
There are many different sharpening techniques, but I use a fairly standard one with a sharpening stone which has a flat side and also a convex side.
As with the cleaning process, the stone needs lubrication in the form of water or oil. Passing the flat edge across the flat side of the blade should remove any burrs.
Then swap to the convex side of the stone, which follows the curved blade perfectly and puts a lovely sharp edge back on.
After having sharpened the blades, I just give the secateurs a few drops of oil on all the moving parts.
I also use the same sharpening stone on my pruning knife and Hori Hori knife, remembering to rub a few drops of oil into the wooden handles.
That’s all my tools all clean and sharp ready for the new gardening season to begin.
The other thing I have started to look at this week is my seed box. What a mess, but I’ll tell you a lot more about that next week when I’ve finished updating it.
If in the meantime you want to ask me any questions about my allotment please email me at Jamieslittleallotment@gmail.com.