How To Maintain Your Garden Tools

You probably already know that you can find all the garden/outdoor tools and accessories at Kleva Range, but do you know how to maintain your garden tools so they give you many years of trouble-free service? If not, please don’t worry — you’ll find all the information you need in this guide.

Maintaining garden tools: best practices for increased longevity

If you follow these simple tips, you should be able to enjoy using your favourite garden tools for longer. What’s more, you’ll save money in the bargain, which is always a good thing as far as we are concerned.

• Clean your tools after every use — The first and most important rule is always to clean tools and equipment as soon as you finish working in your garden. We realise this may sound like an obvious suggestion to more experienced gardeners (and most novices are probably also aware that garden tools should not be put away dirty). 

Still, it’s such an important point that we feel it would be wrong not to mention it right at the beginning. There is also the very real temptation to simply put away cleaning our tools when we have had a tiring day in the garden, but we have to remember that this is never a good idea.

We suggest wiping fresh/loose soil from your garden tools with a damp cloth and using a stiff wire brush to dislodge more stubborn dirt they may have accumulated before putting them away for the night.

• Maintaining a sharp edge — The second golden rule of garden tool maintenance and care that you should always follow is to ensure that all tools with a blade are sharpened regularly. You can easily sharpen your spades by putting them in a vice and running a mill file over the blade's edges.

If you have never used a mill file to sharpen blades before, we suggest using steady, even strokes, using the entire file length and pushing it away from you as you go. Never pull it towards you, as this could blunt not only your spade edge but also ruin your file. You can similarly sharpen your smaller tools with blades (secateurs, pruning shears, scissors etc.). If you have never done this before, you may find it easier to take each tool apart before you sharpen it.

If you find it very difficult to sharpen the blades of your tools or you’re simply not confident in your ability to do so, there is sure to be a local handyman in your area who will be only too pleased to do it for you.

• Conditioning the handles — When maintaining garden tools, it can be easy to focus exclusively on the parts that do all the hard work and forget the handles, but this is a mistake. If you want to enjoy using your garden tools for many years to come, you need to ensure that the handles remain smooth and comfortable. You can do this by sanding them down whenever they feel rough and wiping them with a linseed oil-soaked rag now and then.

• Lubrication — Once you have finished cleaning the dirt off any tools with moving parts, we recommend you occasionally lubricate them. You don’t need to do this every time you use them, just when they start to feel stiff or when you notice that the previous oil application has completely disappeared.

If you follow all the above suggestions, you will be able to enjoy using clean tools and equipment every time you work in your backyard or garden. Should you need other household products and garden tools, don’t forget to check out our entire range while you are here and look at our new arrivals. If you require more information on any products, feel free to contact us at your convenience.