Tried and Tested - Widgets that Work

With Christmas a-coming, Liz Dobbs from The Telegraph picks some ingenious gadgets and handy tools that make everyday gardening tasks a bit easier.


Tomato turns: these galvanised steel spirals supported our cordon tomatoes in the greenhouse this year without theneed to tying in - the stems grew up within the spiral shape. By Bosmere, from garden centres. See: http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/steel-tomato-spiral-rod.html

Fleece preservers: Crop covers such as garden fleece need to be secured to the ground to be effective but pegging them down invariably means the fabric gets torn.  These nifty clips are an alternative that will extend the life of your crop covers.  Simply slip them on along the edge of the fabric and you will then have a row of eyelets to push the pegs into.  Various quantities are available, with and without pegs, from £5.49 for 10 (gardening-naturally.com)

It's a wrap: Rather than wrestle with sheets of fleece and string when insulating borderline hardy shrubs or container specimens, use garden fleece plant jackets with a drawstring or zip.  Then just put over the plant, pack with any other insulation and pull the string or zip up.  Haxnicks has a good range with a drawstring and toggle, widely availale in garden centres, while Harrod Horticultural sells zipped fleeces online.

Something borrowed: A pointing trowel, designed for pointing brickwork, makes a precise, yet versatile and lightweight, garden tool.  Use the pointed tip to remove weeds between plants and to make short seed drills.  The edge of the blade will quickly skim the soil surface to clear small annual weeds prior to planting; the actual trowel is suitable for planting small plants or bulbs. 

App alternative: This planting wheel, £5.25, is a handy memory jogger for more than 30 veg.  Turn to the veg in queestion and it will remind you when to sow or plant, how deep and how far apart. It wipes clean and there's even a hook to hang it up in your garden shed (http://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/planting-wheel-and-grow-your-own-vegetables-book-pid5386.html).

Strong and hairy: Coir string, used by hop growers, has a fibrous texture so is effective as a vetical support for cucumber plants.  It also blends in well when used as a plant tie in the garden.  A 500g hank of hop twine can be bought by mail order from Baileys Home & Garden for £6.50 plus £4.50p&p (call 01989 563015 or email sales@baileyshome.com as it isn't on their website.


Wigwams without ties: This simple piece of plastic was recommended to me by an elderly neighbour as an easy way to make a wigwam for sweet peas.  You just push the bamboo canes into the slots, rather than having to tie them together.  The Tenax version, about £3 to £5, is made of soft plastic so is malleable enough to take the canes. From garden centres and tenax.co.uk.

Tension without stress: Training wires for climbers, supporting vines or canes need to be really taut to do their job.  In the past that meant twisting the ends of wires with pliers but now the Gripple takes the sdtrain - you simply poke the nylon wire down the holes as instructed.  Can be used for grapevines, raspberry canes or ornamental climbers against walls.  To understand how it works, there's a good video on gripplegarden.com, where you can buy direct (a starter pack of four Gripples, 100'/30m of nylon wire and four vine eyes is £16.79). 


Welly neat: Wellitop, £5, is a novel device that fits into the top of a pair of Wellingtons, keeping the boots together and upright (as well as free from spiders).  There is a carrying handle so you can move boots around easily and a cord to hand them up (neatideasdirect.co.uk).

Go digital: An essential bit of kit for a greenhouse, a max/min thermometer shows you the maximum and minimum temperature.  I prefer digital ones as they are easier to read. Some also have a weather station which measures humidity as well.

Hairy pots:  These pots are made of coir and you plant both the pot and the plant - the roots grow through the pot and eventually the coir rots down into the soil.  Apparently, they're brilliant for sowing plants into the ground but the pots are rather bulky for planting plants into containers, such as herb gardens.  Coir pots and accessories can be obtained from hairypotplants.co.uk.

Name that plant:  Using the Brother labelling kit is invaluable.  The printed labels are easier to read than handwritten ones and can be reused.  These can be stuck onto colour-coded plastic laels (depending whether they are destined for: the allotment, greenhouse or garden).  For large quantities of coloured labels, try lbsgardenwarehouse.co.uk.  The Brother GL-200 Garden Labelling Kit with 50 white labels, £47 (labelzone.co.uk)

Take a turn: A sturdy rotary soil seive will sift soil (or garden compost or other organic matter), andmake it physically more suitable as an ingredient in a potting mix.  The sieve is fairly hard work to use, as you need to turn the handle to push the material through, but setting the device over a wheelbarrow helps to keep it steady and collects the sifted material.  Prices vary, the best seen is £34 plus £5.45 p&p (http://www.recycleworks.co.uk/soil-sieves-sifters-c-259.html). (To initially seive home-made compost I use an old freezer basket, chucking the bits which won't go through straight back into the composter for another day).

A stronger support:  The new Harrod Slot & Lock system has locking screws to hold aluminium tubes firmly in place so you can build sturdy cages to support net covers. The cage is quick to assemble, easy to move around raised beds, and strong.  The optional extra of a slip-on butterfly net cover is a real time saver, it pulls over the cage in an instant and fits snugly.  The system comes in a range of sizes, the smallest (4ft x ft/1.2m x 1.2m) is £22.95 for the frame, £33.90 with the slip-on net (harrodhorticultural.com).

Scratch and scrape: After testing more than 30 hand-weeding tools, the Burgon & Ball stainless steel weeding finger , £8.95, emerges as the favourite.  Lightweight but effective, the side of the curved blade can be used to scrape off moss from brick walls and decking, while the tip is perfect for scratching out weeds in awkward rockery crevices and from between paving slabs (http://www.burgonandball.com/shop/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=83)


Also this looks an interesting site: http://gardening.jen99.com/ (no relation)