Naomi Slade has treated herself to an essential gardening tool bag
Notes from a small My new charming yet very practical gardening accessory is a revelation – and I love it
People who design kitchens often talk about the working triangle between the fridge, the cooker and the sink. The idea is that you don’t want these to be too far apart or you’ll walk several miles in the preparation of a meal.
And, when it comes to having things where you need them, gardening isn’t all that different. Starting a task and discovering that you’ve left your secateurs, twine or pencil in the house is frustrating, as is losing a key bit of equipment in the long grass during proceedings. As a result, there are various solutions for keeping the kit together, varying from wheelbarrows (good for large gardens), aprons and tool-belts (good if you’re po ing in one place) or, my favourite, the gardeners’ tool bag. Now, I’ve had one of these for over a decade. If I’m off doing ‘big gardening’ anywhere, it’s the first thing in the back of the car, but the practical reality is that the handy bag operates as somewhere between a shed, a motherhandbag and a filing cabinet. It contains three or four pairs of snips and half a dozen pairs of gardening gloves in varying states of decay. It has a stone for sharpening blades, twine, wire, labels, grafting tape, plus, let’s be honest, several packs of exploded seeds (mostly out of date) and quite a lot of mud!
I love it and it’s useful, but it weighs a tonne and it’s over-spec for lugging around my tiny garden at home.
Recently, however, I found a much smaller gardening tool bag (www.burgonandball.com). An a ractively jaunty, blue-striped affair, it has a full complement of pockets and elastic restraints and is big enough to hold all that is required for a modest gardening foray, without being heavy or bulky.
Cunningly, this also permits me to instigate a gardening version of the day-to-day handbag and rucksack system: a main one that you know contains emergency coins, sweets, plasters and everything you will ever need, and a smaller smarter one for occasions, into which you decant the basics.
It’s a revelation and I’m loving it. So, while the bag would be a good present for someone, I’m going to keep it for myself. It’s not selfishness, it’s discipline: when heading down the garden, I simply don’t need to take everything but the kitchen sink!