How to Organize the Vegetable Garden Shed
The Storage Building and Its Importance to Gardeners
Nov 10, 2008
There are many gardeners who keep their sheds tidy all year. These are the gardeners others envy. Somehow, they seem to always have every tool, bucket and bag of fertilizer in place. This type of gardener can tell others, within inches, exactly where to lay their hands on any given tool at any time during the gardening season.
For the gardeners out there who are not quite that organized, it is time to sort it all out so that all those tools and supplies will be easier to keep up with next season. Open the door to the garden shed and step back, quickly. How many empty plant pots, buckets and broken rake handles toppled out? This is a sure sign that it is past time for organizing the shed.
Most sheds are full of things that were thrown in simply because they 'might be needed some day'. These things are easy to spot because they are usually the stacks upon stacks in the corners that have accumulated more dust than a dolomite mine. The first step will be to get all of those stacks out onto the lawn where it can be sorted through.
What You Will Need:
- A weekend with no rain.
- Family and friends to assist in moving the big stuff.
- Three large plastic-type tarpaulins to spread out on the grass.
- Large garbage receptacles and heavy duty trash bags.
- Containers for storage. (plastic totes are inexpensive and can be found at discount and home stores everywhere)
- Label-maker or permanent marker.
- Shelving units. These can be built from wood or purchased plastic units from discount stores.
- Hooks to hang tools and other items.
Spread the tarps out on the ground, designate each as such; Keep, Thrift Store or Yard Sale, Throw Away. It will be much easier to keep track if you sort as you go.
Remove everything from the shed and transfer each item to a pile on the tarp. Be brutal, if something has not seen daylight for a year or more, it is likely that it will never see daylight. These are the things that clutter the space better utilized for things you will use.
Once everything is out of the shed, decide on a plan which will best serve your purposes. Find a place for the shelves and install them. Decide where containers will fit best, choose wall space for hanging tools and install hooks (or drive nails into the studs).
Back outside, sort through the keep pile. Know what you want from each item. Is it something you will use regularly, a couple times a year or possibly never? Can it be placed in the thrift store pile? Would you really miss it that much?
Any tools which need to be repaired or sharpened should be set aside and taken care of before they are stored. Remember, the piles going back into the shed should be much smaller and will be neatly organized. There will be no room for excess.
A note about the thrift store/yard salepile. Selling items at a yard sale is a good way to make extra money however, in this case, the yard sale items should be boxed up and sold the following weekend. Do not store them in the newly organized shed as this defeats the purpose of cleaning it all out to begin with. If they are not sold the following weekend, take them directly to the thrift store or put the boxes on the curb for trash pick-up.
The throw awaypile should be taken to the curb immediately. Do not procrastinate, get rid of it now.
To Sum Up:
- Purge items, even when it hurts.
- Hang everything possible to clear up floor space.
- Store most often used items to the front.
- Use an old mailbox mounted to the wall to hold hand tools (spade, fork etc)
- Store potting soil, fertilizer and similar supplies in plastic containers or garbage cans.
- Install a shelf along one wall to use as a potting bench.
- Store water hoses on large hooks or round laundry baskets (these can be hung on wall).
- Clean and sharpen tools before storing them.
- Label everything. It will save a lot of frustration later.
Learn how to prepare garden tools for storing through the winter; "How to Care for Garden Tools in Winter".
