Basic Gardening Tools and Equipment You'll Need

    Before you start your home garden activities, it's a must to provide yourself with the needed tools and equipment in your nursery. These tools and equipment must be available all the time to make your gardening works easy and convenient.

You can work peacefully and efficiently if you have a complete tools and equipment in your nursery. You would not be worrying where to borrow because you have a complete sets of them always at hand when eventualities so arises.

You don't need big amount to start collecting your tools and equipment. You can visit some agriculture stores for garden tools and buy at bargain those that are not so costly, especially during yard sales. As a gardener, you've to follow this slogan " Use the Right Tool to the Right Job" to make your gardening work successful.

Some Basic Tools and Equipment

• Shovels - A round-ended shovel should be preferred for digging especially for planting trees and smaller shrubs.

• Garden Hoes - A garden hoe is useful for weeding and cultivating soil surfaces to allow for deeper plant root penetration of nutrients and water.

• Bow Rake -Provide a good heavy duty bow rake, which has short tines on one side attached to a metal frame or 'bow.' This tool is vital for leveling the soil to make it ready for planting, or for removing large clods of earth or rocks from the soil.

• Spading Forks - The spading fork is needed to open and improve the soil. It looks like a pitchfork but has a shorter handle and wider tines. It is used to dig down into hard soil and break up the ground.

• Dull Bolo - This tool is common in the Philippines, its uses is similar with a garden used for weeding and cultivation.

• Sharp Bolo - A sharp bolo is used to cut some grasses and small branches or generally for clearing operations prior to soil cultivation.

• Garden shears - Select a pair of garden shears that fits comfortably in your hand. Shears, sometimes called clippers, are used for pruning, shaping and removing foliage or branches.

• Garden Hose - Hose is necessary to water your garden. Depending on how much there is to water a sprinkler is also a good addition to the watering garden equipment list.

• Sprinkler Can - This is essential for watering your plants. Long nozzles allow the water to come out at a very gentle flow rate and are useful for reaching across long distances. Select a watering can that has a detachable spray head - this type of watering can is perfect for watering young seedlings.

• Hand Sprayer - Hand sprayer is useful for spraying some minor insect pests that are easily managed for minor insect attack in the garden.

• Spade - Similar to shovel, but it has a square end point used for digging and making a straight plots and beds.

• Carts and wheelbarrows - are necessary to transfer some gardening tools and equipment used in your garden works. Some other uses for carts and wheelbarrows are to collect and remove your full grown vegetables from your garden and carry dirt's and grass clippings away from the garden. • Garden Pruner - When you want to shape and cut back longer plants you will use the pruner garden tool. Pruners come in two styles. One is the bypass style and the other is the anvil. Pick up a couple of varieties to see which style is best for you. Pruners that have changeable blades and parts that are possible to sharpen will assist in extending the life of this piece of gardening equipment.

• Garden Trowel - A garden trowel is also used for weeding and cultivation. Select the one with a steel blade to make it last longer in use. There are different types of handles to choose from. You can either select the one with rubber handles that make them easier to grip while using them and there are some that are designed to relieve stress from your wrist during use.

There are still some equipment to be purchased in your gardening operations, but these tools and equipment mentioned are the basics you should purchase. If you have already your bigger capital, Roto-tiller or Tractor is also important in your garden. For the meantime, be satisfied with the basic garden tools and equipment identified, you can already start you garden operations. Happy gardening!

Exotic Pets: Stick Insects

       Stick insects have quite a few names. First of all the order to which they belong is known as either Phasmatodea or Phasmida. Then they are called stick insects in Europe and Australasia, but walking sticks or stick-bugs in America and Canada. Some also get called phasmids, leaf insects and ghost insects.

Needless to say, most of them look like twigs, sticks or leaves. The majority of stick insects come from South East Asian countries like india and Thailand, but they are abundant in many tropical climates including Australia and the southern states of America. Most of the insects that are kept as pets are Indian (or Laboratory) stick insects and they grow to around four inches long and live for around a year.

There are very bizarre species of stick insect like the Vietnamese thorny stick insect and the pink-winged flying stick insect, but they are more difficult to look after. It is better to start with the Indian common form. They will live quite contentedly in a vivarium, which is an tank for reptiles and insects.

Except for offering fresh food and water from time to time and taking out old food, there is no maintenance necessary for these animals. They will need a fairly warm climate but that is not a problem to arrange with a heater, a thermostat and a timer.

Food is not a problem for common species, The most common foods given are privet and lettuce, but they also like ivy, oak, bramble, blueberry and raspberry. You have to place enough of these plants in the vivarium to give cover for the inhabitants so that they do not feel exposed and at risk but not so much that you never get sight of them.

Make sure that there are plenty of air holes in the vivarium, but for the sake of security, they should be covered with fly screen or netting, because these creatures are able to wriggle through small apertures. The tanks should be kept at 70F during the day and 60F at night with moderate humidity. They can be allowed to forage for food at will, but be careful that the water supply is very shallow, because they been known to fall in and drown.

You will be flabbergasted to discover that the overwhelming majority of Indian stick insects are female, but that they do not need a male to have fertile eggs. Young become capable of laying eggs after their sixth moult, all of which moults they eat. Stick insects can lay hundreds of eggs which just drop down among the leaves on the floor of the vivarium.

If you would like to hatch them out, spray a little water on them to simulate light rain and they ought to hatch. If you do not want to be troubled with them, burn the contents of the tank after the last adult has passed away. You might need a permit to keep stick insects, particularly in the United States.