Home Organizing Tips Greater Boston Area, Lowell Massachusetts

Some of you may know that I enjoy gardening and that I’m a member of a local gardening group. This group has friendly and knowledgeable members so I asked a few of them to share their best organizing tips for gardening. Whether you have a large garden or just plant a few pots I think you’ll find the tips helpful.

Start out on the right foot. Clean out your garden bench/shed or shelf. Throw away old plant tags, gloves with holes in them and tools that are beyond repair. Next clean your tools, remove the rust and spray with WD40. Now you can sharpen them so they don’t damage the plants you trim.

Hang your tools on a wall. It keeps them in good condition, handy, and most importantly, it’s obvious when a tool is missing. Use inexpensive pegboard to create a wall like the one pictured.

Save countless trips to the garage by taking your tools with you. Use a 5 Gallon bucket wrapped with a garden tool organizer like this one from Amazon. The gardeners put their small and medium sized tools, as well as gloves, a water bottle and their phone in the organizer pockets. Try to put the same tools in the same pockets each time to reduce searching. You can go one step further and label each pocket. Garden aprons you wear around your waist and vests are also useful for small tools. Duluth Trading Company carries good quality gardening vests.

Find a very shallow, accessible space to build shelves for gardening chemicals like weed killers and fertilizers. This will make it easy to see what you have and what you may need to replenish.

If you like to label your pants you know the tags that come with the plants don’t last long. The gardening group has tried many different types of stakes over the years. They found that the rectangle metal stakes can be damaged during the winter by heavy snow or get accidentally raked up in the fall. These long stakes last longer and can easily be pushed down lower into the dirt in the fall to avoid being raked up during fall cleanup.
The white ones pictured are home made with PVC pipe and laminated labels; the long metal ones are store bought.

When you’re working in the garden and you see something that needs to be trimmed, transplanted, or weeded, place a stake flag, like this one, near that item to remind you to take care of it. These flags can even be left in place during the winter months to remind you of spring tasks. They cost about $8 for 100.

Learn to love what will grow in your yard. Gardening can be an expensive hobby, and there’s no guarantee what you plant will grow, let alone thrive. Keep track of what works and what doesn’t so you don’t repeat the same mistake again. I created a 3 ring binder as my garden log. I divided it by garden area, e.g. lamp post garden, bird bath garden etc. When I plant a new perennial I staple the plant tag to a piece of paper, write the date I planted it and where I planted it in that garden. I make a note at the end of the season about how the plant did. If the plant doesn’t survive the winter I’ll make a note of that and either not buy it again or try planting it in a different garden.