I think your tip is a good one, and better practice than my "system", but for some reason I don't organize my garden tools.

I have fewer than a dozen long-handled tools, and my "system" is to keep the 4-5 I use frequently leaning against the house, right near the front door, under the carport.


The fork has a fiberglass handle and seems pretty rust-resistant, so I keep it throust into the compost heap where it is most often used. The wheelbarrows are parked on top of heaps of soil or clay.

I have given up on organizing my tools. I just have lots of them, all on the other side of the garden.....

I really, really wish I could do this, but I can't organize my tools. I admire anyone who can. I am a chronic messy person. My system has evolved over decades and seems to work for me. I buy duplicates of most all my tools, with the exception of my beloved Felco pruners. I have an average suburban backyard and can't walk more than 10 ft without tripping on a small garden spade, shovel, or cheapie clippers. A basically lazy gardener who doesn't like to walk up the hill to find a trowel, I'll just yank the offensive plant from it's bed and toss it.
I would love to have an organized garage with proper tool placement. Can you come, goldfinch/mcash, sometime between Feb. 28th and May 16th to help me hang all my extra tools? I'd also like an organized walk-in closet too while you're here, if that's not too much to ask.

I have many tools I don't use and duplicates of some I like. I have a shed where I can hang them all neatly and do so periodically but pretty soon my favorite frequently used ones are leaning against the wall near the back door and not in the shed. It is less bother to get them there.

This is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO on time. I have an entire French Cleat rail system in place on my garage walls. Soon as I find more time on the clock in a day, I'm hanging a sheet of peg board, and a rail for all the tools that, YES, are all over the garage, and YES, cost me a boatload of precious gardening time searching for what I need.

Bubbles,
I'm gonna get radical and empty the entire garage in the next couple weeks. Anything that is not part of my seed starting process or that I haven't reached for in the last 6 months pertaining to the gardening, is up for grabs by my Houston gardening friends, and will NOT go back into the garage! The goal is to only put back in what I use.

Pray for me, hear?

Linda

Linda, if it wasn't sooo cold, I'd open my garage and take a pic. No one has a garage that's more disorganized and filled with "stuff." I admire anyone who can have a garage that actually is used for cars and the occasional tools!

I have a garden shed where all my tools are organized.....in the winter. But during the summer the ones I use most get moved to the garage, but always in the same place so I know where to find them. I have a box for gloves, a box for small hand tools, and the big ones are always leaning the same corner. The garage does get scary/messy sometimes in summer though!

What's a garage? I finally got my potting shed organized right before the grandkids' last visit...hasn't been since, but they had fun

My garden tools end up here and there in the yard and on the patio. Love Margaret's organized tools ! I bet she never loses one like I do.

Wow I just saw this for the first time. Not only are your tools well organized but they are clean as a whistle!

Sorry to say Susan, that's not my picture! I'd be thrilled if mine were that clean. That photo is from mcash70.

Oh, good. Now I can ask if they have been waxed.

Let us know what you find out.

<Here's an imaginary answer>

"Of course!
Johnson's Wax and bowling alley wax on the steel, after steel polish OF COURSE,
and lemon oil followed by beeswax on the wood.
Then a heat lamp.
While wearing cotton gloves."

Sounds like I'd need a month off work to clean my tools! But they'd be like new.

Me too!

I confess, I am totally lazy with it comes to tools, I just use them to death and throw them away. DH will snatch the metal because he is a junker!

In reality, me too. For a while I kept a barbecue-grill-scraper with steel brush handy to scrape and brush them off when muddy, but I seem to have misplaced that.

Sometimes I do oil and wax wood handles, because we have so much drizzle that I often use them wet.

I can't stand a wet handle. I guess I would have to get use to it if I lived in the Northwet. What kind of flower is that with the funny green petals?

>> What kind of flower is that with the funny green petals?

It's a very rare hybrid, Zinnia treefroggy. They very seldom reproduce by seed, and they almost revert to either the parent Zinnia, or the parent tree frog.

>> I can't stand a wet handle

I usually wear gloves, but I agree that a wet handle is nasty, especially if the wood is oiled or waxed.

P.S. Wood waxed with beeswax is "grabby". It will give you a great grip, but causes blisters very quickly if you slid the handle through your fingers at all.

Paraffin wax or bowling alley wax gives a hard, slick slippery finish.

There are two kinds of Johnson's Paste Wax. One is smooth, but the other has fine no-slip-grit added for using on floors.

For oiling wood to resist rain, sometimes I use fancy semi-liquid furniture polish with orange oil and some fancy waxes semi-dissolved in it. . But usually I just rub it with a rag that' has some mineral oil on it. Then maybe rub with some beeswax or paraffin.