I have heard of people painting the handles of their tools pink to keep their husbands from taking them, but it seems like a little da-glo paint might serve that purpose and also make them easy to find if they get dropped into the grass.

A few years ago I replaced my mailbox & put the old one in the garden where I stashed hand tools & gloves. The wind got it this year, but it was nice while it lasted.

I usually have white house paint on hand for touch-up on the house, it is also used on my tool handles. I also have a couple of mail boxes I use. I like the plastic one best because I can sit my electric fence charger in it and not be concerned about it shorting out. A 5 gal bucket works pretty good if you want to carry your tools back and forth to the house of shed. U.V. are a little rough on plastic buckets if you leave them in the sun. The buckets also make a pretty good seat if you are doing something where you need a seat. I also made an over-head rack by attaching 1x 2' to the bottom of the ceiling joist on the porch of my storage shed. The rack Is about 18' long and all of my long handled tools are stored in it. They are over head, easy to see and out of the way. The rack also does not take up wall space that I like to use for shelves.

Ooooh DayGlo even comes in glow-in-the-dark colors.

And, Larry, those are some excellent suggestions. I'm still re-arranging and organizing the storage shed and that method would work well. I've plenty of scrap wood to nail up onto the exposed rafters. Today I was lugging a milk crate to sit on (which I broke. ah!) while dragging along tools in another hand. 5 gallon bucket with a handle would be much better!

Thanks!

For hand tools, I have a 5-gallon tool bucket, and it has a floral plastic tool organizer insert from Gardener's Supply that has oodles of pockets, pouches, etc. to slide tools into so they stay organized. Both the bucket and the organizer insert are very brightly colored so that I don't misplace them and have to search for them. My tool bucket goes out with me in the morning and I carry it back inside when I come in for the day. I even carry it inside at lunch time and then back out again. One note about using a tool bucket---if your garden is plagued by snakes, always put the bucket up on top of a stool, table or chair so that it is harder for snakes to climb into your bucket and scare you later when you reach inside for a tool. If you put it on the ground, they can slither inside very easily.

For larger tools, ours all have brightly colored handles so we can find them if we leave one lying on the ground or leaning against a fence post, tree or tomato cage. Mine are bright yellow. You can paint them, or you can wrap them with duct tape (eventually it dries and cracks and comes off bit by bit) or you can wrap them with Vet Wrap (we get it in the equine section of TSC), which comes in many colors and which also improves the grip of the tool handles because it is textured. Vet Wrap lasts longer than duct tape.

Hardware stores (I've seen it at Home Depot and Lowe's) sell Plasti-Dip in various colors. You dip your tool handles into it and it coats them. This makes them easier to find. They also have it available now in spray cans, but I haven't used that one yet.

For me, the most important thing is to simply develop a specific routine and to stick with it. When I have long-handled tools in the garden, when I am through with them for the moment, I always take them and lean them against the entry arbor. That way, when I am leaving the garden, there they sit, screaming "Take me up to the barn and put me away", which I do. If I leave them lying in some random place in the garden, I'll forget where I left them.

I still haven't found a perfect way to keep up with scissors or small pruning shears when deadheading flowers or pruning dead or damaged foliage off a plant. I lose one or two of them a year, usually because I drop them into the compost pile with an armload of compostable material and just don't realize that I dropped them there. I always find them in the winter or spring, though, when I am digging out finished compost to add to raised beds.

Bon, I bought another gardening tool yesterday.

I have been a little under he weather for the past year and have had to rely on my wife to do things that I had rather do myself. She has stepped up to the plate and done a wonderful job. I will check this thing out and teach her to use it and if I am unable to till next year this thing will have a tiller on it if she wants it.

Larry

Awesome. I'll compare the spray-on with the plasti dip and see which would work best. I'm sold on the bucket. I bet I can fashion or create something to wrap around to hang tools. And I'm thinking the bucket would save a harvest trip. You know.. when you spot that okra plant that wasn't picked the day before.. just a couple. I'm grateful for the expansion in the garden, but all this walking back and forth. Ugh.

I had a blast trying to find my small needle-nose pliers in the pumpkin patch today... sheesh

Larry, Nice new tool. Think maybe you should spray it hot pink so it doesn't disappear in the abundant green growth that you have every year? (grin) If you keep this up, we're going to stop thinking of you as a gardener and start referring to you as a farmer.

Bon, But the walking back and forth is marvelous exercise! I just think I'm getting too old and lazy to exercise as much as the garden forces me to. My two front garden plots are probably at least 300' or maybe 350' from the two back garden plots. I have to really plan out a day's activity well so I do all the work out front first and then all the work out back, and I have learned to be sure to take all the tools with me from the front to the back garden in one trip. Otherwise, I am running back and forth from the front to the back garden too many times and just wear myself out. Because my summer harvest often is a heavy one on any given day, I usually take a big wheelbarrow to the garden on a day I am going to harvest a lot of stuff. I'd rather wheel the whole harvest up to the house in one trip than to make a dozen trips just to carry buckets and bowls of stuff from the garden to the house. I used to have a little metal garden cart with four wheels and drop-down sides but its axle rusted out and broke so I just commandeered Tim's wheelbarrow and made it my own.

Dawn

Larry, I could use one of those. I'd even take it in "arrest me" red.

Dawn, Hopefully the day will come for me when a wheel barrow is required. :D

Larry, I am jealous and I want one.

Bon, I will ask Santa to slip one of these tools, painted "Arrest Me Red" in his bag.

Carol, you may not want one like I got, its 20 years old, but its the newest one on the place. I have no idea what I will have to repair on it.

I bought a tool organizer bucket liner from Lowes that sounds similar to Dawns. It helps a ton. You do have to be careful about sticking your hand way down in the bucket. I have to watch for spiders and even had a wheel bug hide in it once. But I can quickly grab the tools on the side and it works for me and my limited storage. Happy organizing! Christina

Bon, Don't worry. That wheelbarrow harvest is coming sometime in the next few years.

Carol, You took the words right out of my mouth.

Larry, I think the older tractors are a lot easier to fix than the newer ones. The newer ones have all those fancy sensors and things and I think they make repairing-it-yourself pretty difficult.

We have a friend who is a certified John Deere mechanic and he has worked for JD for over 2 decades. He is truly amazing and can fix absolutely anything that is wrong. Sometimes after other John Deere mechanics have struggled with a problem tractor for a long time without ever getting it fixed, they call him in to troubleshoot the problem and fix it. He is amazing and Tim and I remain in awe of his knowledge, skill and talent. I never realized how many different ways tractors can break down nowadays until we got to know him. He goes and takes courses every year to stay current on the newest technology being used in tractors, their accessories, combines, balers, etc. He could work 24/7 every day of the year and never catch up with the backlog of repairs waiting to be done. I like the really old tractors that are easier to understand and to repair. All the new ones are too fancy.

Christina, Mine is a lot like that. I had one like that before I bought the one I have now. The one you have works fine, but mine is oilcloth so it doesn't stain and it wipes clean....and it is a very bright floral print, which is important to me when I am in the garden surrounded by a sea of green foliage. My garden is a jungle.....I am pretty sure that if you stand still and listen quietly on a hot summer afternoon, you can hear the trumpeting of an elephant as it approaches the jungle.....so I needed a bright bucket/organizer that wouldn't blend it too much. Gardener's Supply no longer carries it, so I'm glad I bought mine when I did a few years ago (and I got it when it was on sale, which was just a bonus because I was going to get it anyway). However, I googled and found a photo of it which I'll link below just because it is such a pretty bucket organizer.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Floral Tool Bucket Organizer

Nice new tool Larry. We recently well my son got a little MF tractor from his papa. my FIL is unable to fix it or use it anymore and since we got the property settled and actually own it now he thought we could put it to good use. I has a bucket like yours and a plow, disc, mower and something else. I cant wait to learn how to use it. My son got it home but not yet running. I guess the fuel system needs a good cleaning. It has set up for a few years but should be easy to fix.
Kim

Kim, I think the Massey Ferguson is a better tractor. We have MF 240 ( actually my step dad's) to use for the heavier work, but it weighs about 2.5 times that of the little Kubota and the ag tires ruts up the lawn. We also have a little Wheel Horse, but it does not have a lift. I am hoping to teach Madge to use the Kubota, and my health does not improve she will not be as dependent or other people.

Larry

My son laughed when I said I want to learn how to use it. But I want to be able to help him clean up the land and he works 12-16 hours in the heat already. I hope we can get it going pretty quick. It is a 1020 which apparently is pretty old. I am clueless haha if you didnt already know but I study and try to learn something new every day! I too have a lot of physical issues that prevent me from doing things I would like to do so having tools to make it easier is essential isn't it.
kim

Kim, I think it is great that you want to use the tractor and help your son. My wife has done wonderfully well at taking over the work here. I have not been able to walk or lift very well this summer and my wife ask me to use my extra strength helping my parents and daughter. My wife is even becoming a gardener.

You will enjoy the Massey, it has more impressive Specs than the Kubota. It is a Japanese tractor just like the Kubota is. The 240 Massey we have was made in England. We don't make anything in America anymore other debt and babies.

Larry

Larry that's funny "debt and babies". Sad but true.

When Benj, my son brought the tractor home it was not running so he eased it off the trailer. He said it gained enough momentum and carried him very fast across the drive and down a very steep incline into the garden area at the slaughterhouse, backwards, in the dark. 6 flags has no ride to compare.
We have a lot friends that are diesel mechanics so I hope I hope we get it going soon. The careless weeds are as tall as me over there and the sticker weeds are nearly as bad. I am going to take before and after pictures to share later. it is a horrible mess. But we have a vision and I think it will clean up nice.

As far as tools I saw a golf club caddy and I am going to try to find a cheap one to haul my stuff in at the slaughterhouse. I think it will work for all my tools except maybe pitchfork.
kim