Gardening Hand Tools
There are many different types of hand tools used in the garden. There are a few you will need to do your gardening. If you are just starting out you do not have to buy every hand tool on the market. Depending on the job you are doing you can choose the few you will need and save the rest for a later time.
Most of the tools listed here have been around for many years with very little design change. The reason for this is, it usually works just fine the way it is. Some tools you may need for your garden:
1. A Spade - A spade is a lot like a shovel with a few differences. The head is usually thinner and are sometimes rounded or pointed. It is used to loosen up the soil or break up clumps. You can also get a spade in a smaller version to use in close proximity of your plants.
2. Gardening Fork - A gardening fork is shaped much like a pitchfork. It is usually much smaller with shorter, thicker tines. Where a pitchfork is used to lift things the gardening fork is used to dig and loosen the soil. It is usually used in conjunction with the spade.
3. Gardening Hoe - A hoe usually has a long wooden handle and a sharp metal blade. The shape of the blade depends on what the hoe is used for. Most hoes are used to break up the soil around your plant, to remove weeds, piling soil around the plants (hilling), creating shallow trenches for planting seeds, and just generally dig.
4. Gardening Rake - A gardening rake, not to be confused with the kind used for raking grass
and leaves, usually has large heavy tines and a long wooden handle. This gardening hand tool is used primarily for loosening and leveling the soil. They can also be used to loosen and remove small rocks.
5. Cultivator - A cultivator usually has tines in a rotary position. It is used to aerate and loosen 
the soil either before planting or after planting to get rid of weeds and get oxygen into the soil. Cultivating the soil brings nutrients into the soil to keep plants healthy. A tiller is a motorized version of the cultivator. Although this is considered a garden power tool, it is being included here because if you have a large plot you do not want to do this by hand.
These are some of the most common gardening hand tools that you will need.
[tag] gardening, gardening tools, gardening hand tools[/tag]