Here is an idea to help organize your garden tools – Entry #170

I think everyone who loves to garden ends up accumulating a plethora of various kinds of digging tools.  Spade shovels, flat nose shovels, scoop shovels, rakes, pitch forks, etc. are all a necessity for those of us who spend the warmer months digging in the dirt. What’s really frustrating however is when you need a specific tool but can’t seem to locate the proper one when you need it the most; not only that, but having tools lying around everywhere makes your place look untidy and disorganized.   That was our case and the frustration of it finally motivated me to figure out an inexpensive solution.  Most of our tools generally seemed to end up leaning against the garden fence line and I realized if I was to build some sort of a rack to hang them on the best place to locate it would be where they would naturally end up.  Because my new tool rack would be outside where things would be close at hand I decided to construct something that could stand up to the weather during the spring and summer seasons.  Here is my solution.

Looking around through my junk I spotted some left over ½ inch foundation bolts.  They were ten inches long and had a perfect “L” shaped hook at the end.  (See picture A) I realized that their threads where just long enough to be bolted to a left over 2X12 I had scrounged from my scrap pile.  I drilled sets of ½ inch holes four inches apart down the 2X12 leaving 10 inches between each set of two.  I bought an extra set of washers and nuts for each bolt so that I could put a nut and washer on each side of the plank.  (See picture B)  After cinching them up tight I bolted the ten foot rack on the garden fence and gathered every tool I could find and hung them between the foundation bolts.  Already this small simple invention has made our lives easier.  Not only is it easier to find the tools we need but it did in fact make the garden look uncluttered and tidy.