Getting Organized

It is safe to say I will never win any contests for neatness. When I was working for a living, my messy desk was almost legendary, and I once had the fire inspector shaking his head at all the computer paper in my office. But despite the mess, I always knew where to find everything important. Which goes to show that being messy is not the same as being disorganized. And conversely, being neat isn’t the same as being organized, either.

According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, to organize means “to arrange or order things so that they can be found or used easily and quickly.” One of my goals this year was to organize our garden tools in a better way. We have a garden shed, but it is sitting far away from the house, which makes it rather inconvenient to go there for gardening tools. Happy Acres also came with an outbuilding closer to the house that previous owners built to store their boat. We now use that as a storage area for the lawn mower, tiller, and shop equipment. That’s where we decided to put our most-used garden tools.

garden tools on shop wall

With help from our friend and neighbor Ken (who is both organized and neat), I found some hooks in various shapes and sizes that I could mount in the drywall or studs in the shop. This lets us store things like our favorite shovels, digging fork, garden rake, pruning shears and assorted hoes in an easy to access location just inside the shop door. I was also able to mount the battery powered weed-eater and blower, plus the battery charger for them. This will be so convenient, and already I am loving the new arrangement.

storage for winter squash

While organizing in the shop, we freed up a shelf unit. After cleaning it up, we brought it inside and down to the basement. The shelves will do a good job of holding the winter squashes. It looks like we will be well-supplied with squash for the coming months!

new potting bench in greenhouse

This summer I also did some organizing in the greenhouse. Summer is a good time to get in there since the greenhouse has less going on then. I replaced both the table and potting bench with new ones. The old ones were brought over from my old place, and were close to 20 years old and in not in very good shape. The new ones are made of Western Red Cedar, and came from Charley’s Greenhouse & Garden. They are well made, and will likely outlast the greenhouse itself.

shallow Tubtrug holds small hand tools

While I was replacing the bench and table, I took the opportunity to do some organizing too. I spend a good amount of time out there, so it really pays to have things organized. I used a Tubtrug to hold my small hand tools like scissors and shears. Another Tubtrug holds soil amendments and other often used things like Sluggo and deer repellent.

Microtub holds smaller items in greenhouse

I love the Tubtrugs for lots of different gardening chores. They are great for carrying compost to the garden, and harvests back to the house. I even found some tiny ones (Microtubs) just big enough to hold my widger, marking pen and plant labels.

I hope you have enjoyed this update. The weather here is slowly returning to more normal temperatures, and the snow is melting away. I will be playing catchup with gardening chores in the next few days.