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Tools & maintenance

An SFG bed needs fewer tools than a conventional garden — you never dig, you never till, and you can't walk into the bed anyway. Five good tools last decades if you clean and sharpen them. Five cheap tools rust out in one season. This chapter is about picking the right five and keeping them sharp.

The five essentials

With these five tools you can do 95% of every task in a 1.2×1.2 m SFG bed. Buy the best quality you can afford — a €30 trowel outlives four €8 ones.

Hand trowel

The single most-used tool. Stainless steel head, ash or hickory handle, not a pressed-tin scoop. Used for transplanting, loosening a square, mixing in compost. Look for a pointed tip (easier in a full square) and measurements stamped on the blade — handy for depth.

Bypass pruners (secateurs)

For harvesting, pinching side shoots, cutting flower stems, pruning berries and herbs. 'Bypass' (two blades slide past each other) gives a clean cut; 'anvil' crushes stems and is only for dead wood. Felco #2 is the 30-year classic; Löwe, Okatsune and Niwaki are similarly legendary. Expect €40–80.

Hand fork or soil knife (hori-hori)

For loosening the top 5 cm of a square without pulling the whole structure apart, teasing out deep-rooted weeds, and levering up root veg at harvest. A Japanese hori-hori doubles as a trowel, knife, weeder and measure — one tool does four jobs.

Watering can with rose

5–10 litres. Metal or heavy-duty plastic. Critical: a detachable fine rose for seedlings (gentle shower) and a coarse rose for established plants. Avoid cheap sets where the rose doesn't seal — half the water ends up on your foot.

Garden snips (herb scissors)

Small pointed scissors for harvesting herbs, salad leaves, flowers — anywhere the pruners are overkill. Keeps the main pruners sharp longer because you stop using them for leaf work. €10–15 buys a pair that lasts for years.

Nice-to-have (after year one)

  • Kneeling pad — 30 mm thick foam, double-sided. Your knees in year 5 will thank year-1 you.
  • Harvest basket or trug — rigid, washable, with drain holes. Makes the weekly harvest walk a pleasure instead of a juggle.
  • Copper slug rings or a flexible hand weeder — small helpers for specific, repeating problems.
  • A sharpening stone / diamond file + a small bottle of camellia oil — not really optional long-term (see Care below).

    • Five things you do NOT need for SFG

    These are default gardening tools that SFG makes unnecessary. Don't buy them out of habit — they'll clutter the shed.

  • Digging fork / spade — SFG has no dig. Mel's Mix is loose enough you never break ground.
  • Rake — nothing to rake. No bare soil between rows.
  • Hoe — no weeding in the classical sense; the dense planting + mulch do it.
  • Tiller / motor cultivator — actively harmful (destroys soil structure and fungal networks). Full stop.
  • Wheelbarrow — optional. If you compost in-place and one small bed is your whole garden, a bucket covers it.

    • Why quality matters

    A €60 pair of Felco pruners is three €20 pairs over a lifetime — and unlike the cheap ones, they can be sharpened, oiled, and have parts replaced (spring, blade, nut). Well-made tools also work better in the moment: a sharp blade cuts cleanly on the first try, a wobbly trowel tires your wrist in 10 minutes. Buy slowly, buy once.

    Care routine

    Five minutes per session is all it takes. Most broken tools are killed by neglect, not by use.

  • After every use: wipe the soil off with a rag or the edge of a board. Wet soil + steel = rust.
  • Once a week in the growing season: dip the metal parts in a bucket of sand + boiled linseed oil. Sand cleans, oil protects.
  • Monthly: a few drops of light machine oil on the pruner pivot. Open and close several times, wipe excess.
  • Seasonally: sharpen pruner blades and trowel edges (see below). Tighten any loose handles.
  • Before winter: deep-clean, sharpen, oil generously, store hanging (not laid on a shelf — moisture collects).

    • Sharpening pruners (10 minutes)

    A sharp blade is safer, easier on your wrist, and makes cleaner cuts that heal faster on the plant.

  • 1. Clean the blade: scrape off plant resin with an old rag + a drop of WD-40. Dry.
  • 2. Hold the beveled edge against a diamond file or sharpening stone at the existing angle (~20°). Push the file away from the edge — never towards it.
  • 3. Six to ten firm strokes along the full length. Check: the blade should shave a thin curl off a piece of paper held edge-on.
  • 4. Wipe, put one drop of oil on the pivot bolt, work the action a few times. Done.

    • Raised bed wood care

    Untreated wood lasts 5–10 years if you help it. Five minutes a year extends that by years.

  • Every spring: brush off loose debris, inspect corners and the bottom edge (where moisture collects).
  • Every 2–3 years: apply a food-safe wood oil (raw linseed or a dedicated 'garden oil') to exterior faces only. Interior stays bare — Mel's Mix doesn't need it and you don't want oil leaching in.
  • Replace the rotting corner board, not the whole bed. Corners go first — swap the one bad board, the other three have years left.
  • If you have voles or slugs: a copper strip nailed to the top edge is a one-time 30-minute job that keeps them off for years.

    • Common mistakes

  • Leaving tools in the bed or on the lawn overnight. Dew + steel = rust film by morning. A hook by the back door takes 30 seconds per trip.
  • Never sharpening. A dull pruner crushes stems — slower cuts, more effort, worse for the plant, and you blame the tool.
  • Buying cheap three times instead of good once. A €8 trowel bends in month two; a €30 trowel outlives you.
  • Losing small tools in the bed. Paint the handles bright orange or yellow — problem solved forever.

    • Buy five good tools and look after them. Clean after use, oil weekly, sharpen seasonally. You'll have the same tools in 20 years — and they'll cut better than new ones because the edge is perfectly matched to your wrist.