Things to Always Keep in the Garden

I was thinking the other day that there are always a few things that you should keep easily to hand in the vegetable garden.  I was doing my morning check before my walk and found two fresh blooms on the zucchini.  Not the first by any means, but I had snapped the results of the first three off because they were not fully pollinated and were developing lopsidedly.  When you have a whole lot of something, it doesn't make sense to try to save imperfect results.  So they went into the compost.  Although there was a bumble bee in the flowers, I decided, to be safe, I should hand pollinate them.  There are two ways to do this.  I could pick the male flower, strip the petal off, and stick it into the female flower, transferring the pollen.  Or I could go to the garden shed for a small paint brush.  When I was done, I stowed the paint brush in my tool box inside the gate for quick access later on.  I had neglected to move it this spring when I transferred necessary items out there,

Many people keep a simple mailbox in the garden.  It holds plenty of tools and is weather tight.  My garden tool box is a gas station island windshield service box from the 1950s.  We had one kicking about, excess to requirements of my husband's gas station collection.  It is also weather tight and has the added advantage of having a paper towel dispenser in the bottom.  It holds the flimsy paper tri-fold towels which are perfect for drying your hands from washing in the garden hose and go right into the compost where they dissolve quickly,

The next most important item is a weed pan of some sort.  This doesn't have to be a large trug for major weeding but just somewhere to drop a few weeds you might not otherwise pull if you didn't have a place to put them,  For this I have an old enameled strainer.  A second hand colander would also work.  You want something that is going to drain rainwater and not make weed soup.  Mine stays in the corner by the gate post all year round collecting strawberry hulls and windfall apples and paper towels.  When it fills up I dump it in the compost or the weeding trug.  Whichever is most appropriate.

The rest of the list of necessary tools is as follows:

• Shears and/or knife
• Clips
• String
• Gloves
• Trowel
• Dibber
• Small Paint Brush

The trowel and the gloves are self explanatory.  The scissors and/or knife are for quick snipping of a tomato or zucchini so you are not tempted to rip it off and damage both the plant and the fruit.  Planned harvests might require a hod and a pruner, but I often see something that either needs to come off because it is rotting or as a last minute lunch idea.

The string and clips are for tying things up.  Maybe you see a stray cucumber vine or you have a few minutes in which to add another layer to your Florida weave.  You might put it off if you had to go get the supplies.  The final item is a dibber of some sort.  I always have a short piece of bamboo or something stuck into the corner of a raised bed.  This is for poking a seed under the soil, or even uprooting a stubborn weed.  There are many occasions where I am looking around muttering...

 "where did I put that stick?"

Those are my essentials.  Other things tend to migrate there through the season.  Clothes pins for securing row covers to the fence to dry or a measuring cup for mixing deer repellent.  I usually have a few different hose nozzles rattling around in there.  Cable ties.  A bungee cord.  Scrub brush for pots and fingernails.  The important thing is to have a box or at least a wire basket to collect weather proof items.

Daylily season is coming to and end.  It is time to start switching over to 

Dahlia of the Day:  City Lights