Get Your Garden On

You’re inspired and excited to garden! Now what? Gather up some ideas and hatch that plan. What you will need: gloves, a place to plant your plants, seeds to grow, and some tools to use for digging in the dirt. Below you will find various checklists to help you get started!

Container Garden Checklist

Using containers (pots of all shapes and sizes) allows for the least amount of tools and supplies. To get started, all you really need is a pot, soil, seed and some way of watering it all.

Raised Bed Garden Checklist

If you felt spunky and have built a raised bed, which is a large scale container garden, you might need a few more items for your gardening needs.

  • Your raised bed structures
  • Seeds or starter plants
  • Garden soil or compost
  • Gardening gloves
  • Foam kneeling pad
  • Hoe and weeder
  • Pruners (scissors or snips)
  • Garden rake
  • Shovel, spade and hand trowel
  • Watering can, hose and nozzle, soaker hose, or drip irrigation

In-Ground Garden Checklist

Having and prepping an in-ground garden bed can be labor intensive, but with the right tools it can relieve the amount of labor needed to achieve a great garden.

  • An area to put your garden
  • Seeds, seedling plugs, or starter plants
  • Garden soil or compost
  • Gardening gloves
  • Foam kneeling pad
  • Cultivator, hoe and weeder
  • Pruners (Scissors or snips)
  • Garden rake
  • Shovel, Digging fork, Spade and Hand trowel
  • Watering can, hose and nozzle, soaker hose, drip irrigation, or sprinkler

Other Suggested Gardening Tools and Supplies

All the supplies can be found at any garden store.

Protection

  • Gardening gloves for protection against insects, soil organisms, blisters
  • Wrist wrap for those with wrist injuries or wrist irritation history
  • Foam kneeling pad
  • Hats, protection for your face and eyes from too much sun

Hand Tools

  • Hand trowel for digging and planting
  • Hand cultivator for aerating soil
  • Hand hoe or weeder for removing difficult weeds
  • Scissors, snips, or pruners for trimming and harvesting plants
  • Garden knife for cutting and weeding

Large Tools

  • Garden rake for leveling soil and spreading mulch
  • Spade for digging, transplanting, and edging garden beds
  • Shovel for digging and moving bulk matter
  • Digging fork for turning and loosening the soil
  • Garden hoe for removing weeds and clearing soil
  • Large cultivator for aerating soil

Tip: When you go to buy larger tools such as rakes, spades, shovels, forks, and hoes test them out to make sure they feel good for your height.

Transport Tools

  • Basket or bucket for harvesting plants and carrying supplies
  • Wheelbarrow or garden cart for moving soil and mulch

Irrigation

  • Watering can for delicate plants, small gardens, or hard-to-reach beds
  • Hose and nozzle for general watering for various sizes of gardens
  • Soaker hose, drip irrigation, or sprinkler for large gardens or automated irrigation systems

Weed Control

  • Mulch (This could be rocks, wood chips, growing cloth, paper, cardboard, and garden plastic sheeting)

Links to guide you

New veggie garden? 6 tips for keeping it healthy through summer

Gardening Videos: Topics include container gardening, herbs, cole (broccoli, kale, etc.) crops, leafy green vegetable, tomatoes, peppers and more.