I used to prune my chokecherry and spirea with my meat cleaver. I would climb the tree and hang on with one hand and hack with the other. We didn't have too many strangers walk into our yard after seeing that display. I think they figured was nuts. But it worked well.

Using a dog poop scoop and small leaf rake. Its wonderful for cleaning up small rocks and leaves. Plus it's easy on your back since you don't have to bend.

Mary, I can't think of anything more scarier than you hanging from a tree with a meat cleaver! That's right up there with a scared woman with a claw hammer!

Phillip, I use one of those dustpans with the long handle on it the same way you use your poop scoop. Definitely a must for tired backs!

You go, Mary Stella!

I bet your neighbors look up carefully any time they walk under overhanging trees.

I have enough hatchets and loppers that I save my thinner Chinese cleaver for splitting kindling down into fine tinder. When the grain of the wood is right, a thin-edged cleaver tapped with a wooden mallet can split or shave thin "shingles" off a block of wood, and then slice matchsticks from a sheaf of those "shingles".

I use a thicker, less classy cleaver to whack apart rotten fruit, melons and such that I bring home from a fruit stand's dumpster.

I have an hour-glass-shaped liqueur glass that has a little "belly" near the rim. That's great for counting medium and big seeds. I can tilt the glass and shake or scoop 5-20 seeds into the belly, and then count-while-dragging those seeds over the lip and into a tray.

I use white saucers to hold a few seeds while I'm sowing. That lets me see them clearly after I spread them around thinly so that a damp fingertip picks up only one seed at a time.

As long as I can remember gardening, I have always had a cheap stainless steel butcher knife that I use when cutting apart seedlings in a flat. (My flat is 1/2 a milk carton split vertically.) I have several and usually find them at garage sales or the thrift store.

You can get really awesome knives cheap at thrift stores .. they usually have them in a box behind the counter so ask. That's where I get all my knives for the garden.