3 Essential Backyard Gardening Tools
When you’re short on time, space, and energy, the right systems make all the difference. Over the past three years of gardening, I’ve tried a lot of things some that collected dust and a few that get regular use. In the future I'll go into pitchforks, shovels, hoes and other hand tools but these are as good a place as any to start.
These three things keep my wife happy(no indoor smell) and my garden growing in a sustainable way. My plan is to talk about each of these things in more depth soon, but I want to introduce a few things that will get a backyard grower off to the right start.
1. Bokashi Bin
This is my go-to for managing kitchen scraps without attracting pests or smells. It’s a simple fermentation process that lets me compost even things like bread, citrus, and cooked food that wouldn’t normally go into a traditional pile.
It saves me trips to the compost heap, reduces waste, and gives me nutrient-rich material to feed the soil. It also keeps my outdoor pile moving along. In zone 5b summers are relatively short so getting my plant matter to breakdown in time for fall is hard, but I find that the bokashi product really helps it to compost quickly. For a small backyard, it’s one of the easiest ways to close the loop.
👉 Check out the Bokashi bin I use on Amazon
2. Soil Blocker
When I first started seeds, I used plastic trays and pots. They worked, but I found myself dealing with extra plastic waste and rootbound seedlings. Switching to a soil blocker changed that. I tried winstrips and they worked, but its was tricky to get them out, and didn’t give me the same flexibility.
The blocker compact soil blocks that air-prune the roots, making transplants healthier and reducing transplant shock. I only use the 2” blocker for now, but will eventually get the 1.5 for next spring.
👉 Here’s the soil blocker I recommend
3. Outdoor Composter
Yes another compost item, but really necessary with a garden and all the plant waste you will have. Even with a Bokashi bin for kitchen scraps, I like having an outdoor composter for yard waste, leaves, and all the plants I don’t eat in the garden. It keeps everything contained and neat, speeds up the composting process, and doesn’t take up much space.
This makes it easy to return organic matter back to the soil without creating a mess or attracting animals.
👉 Here’s the outdoor composter I use
Why These Three?
I’ve bought plenty of tools I didn’t really need, but these three have proven themselves in keeping things manageable and regenerative. Most people will talk about a 3 bin system, but for those to be effective you need yards of waste. With the amount of waste I’m producing this works right. As my needs grow I think another round composter will be the way to go. If I ever do start a market garden with more land 3 bin is the way to go. However for the backyard these ones save time, reduce waste, and keep the garden simple and manageable.
If you want to keep things small, regenerative, and realistic for a backyard garden, these are a solid place to start.
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