Storing Gardening Tools for the Winter

Gardening Tools
Storing Gardening Tools For The Winter

Storing your gardening tools properly over the winter can extend their life and for those expensive electrical tools such as the electric lawn mower, keeping them away properly is definitely a wise choice because you would not want to spend hundreds to get another new machine.

Scrape Off Dirt on Equipments

Often times, you will find excess dirt, soil or mud sticking onto or being left to stick on pots, shovels, watering buckets and other gardening tools. Before storing these tools, you must remove the dirt or mud using a wire brush or removing them by hand after soaking the tools into a pail of water.

Excess dirt or mud on these equipments may contain water droplets that may freeze during the winter, causing some parts of the tools to rust. Also, these mud or dirt contains bacteria that you must get rid of.

Remove the Rust

Some of the equipments or some of their parts may already have rust on them. Before storing them into the garage for the winter, make sure that the rust is being removed using a steel wool.

Be careful throughout the process and make sure that you wear a pair of proper gardening gloves. A cut while doing this may cause wounds that will lead to various type of infections.

Sharpen Gardening Tools for Tip Top Condition

There are certain gardening tools that needs to be sharpen. Some of these tools include spades, axes, shovels, pruners and other tools with a sharp portion. Here's how you can properly sharpen your gardening tools:

Get yourself a nice sharpening stones system that allows you to carry out different degrees of sharpening. Hold your tool with the edge that you would like to sharpen placed 45 degrees on top of the sharpening stone. Then, slowly move the tool edge across the stone repeatedly.

Smooth Out Wooden Parts of Gardening Tools

Some gardening tools may have wooden parts that are worn out due to frequent use. If you have these tools, smoothen them using sand papers and an extra step will be to coat the wooden parts with a layer of paste wax.

This will help to keep the wood from getting moisturized and attracting pests such as termites. If the wooden parts are not properly coated, fungus may also grow on them during the winter.

Rust Prevention Measures

Another headache for gardeners when it comes to storing their gardening tools over the winter is rust. There are a couple of things that you will need to do in order to prevent rust from getting onto your tools.

First, you will need to spray a layer of penetrating lubricating oil on top of the steel part. Then, make sure that you store the tools at a dry place. The garage floor is a bad choice because it gets damp easily during winter.

Photo credit: Morgan

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