Hi, I’m Kathy Jentz showing you how to winterize your vegetable garden. We’re now going to show you how to clean, sharpen and store your tools away for the winter.

So, first we’ll start with our large tools getting them cleaned up. We have a bucket of clean water here. We’re just going to fill up a little bit and wet down our tools. We’re just giving off the big chunks of mud and anything that will cause rust on the tools.

All right, so we have that fairly cleaned off. We’re just going to let it sit out in the sun to dry off. So, your next step will be to sharpen your tools. It’s really nice to have a sharp blade especially when you’re digging tools, your trowels, and your shovels. It will only take it a second. It’s usually just two or three swipes per side. You can get a nice sharp angle there for when you’re cutting into the hard soil of next spring and late winter. So, you can do the same with your pruners to give it a nice, sharp edge right there and with your weeding tools. So, these rasps are available at any hardware store or garden center. They’re just a few dollars and they’re great investment for your garden.

So, now to store your tools away for the winter, we’re going to fill our bucket with coarse sand and a little bit of motor oil and what we’re doing is creating a nice storage place for your long handled tools and the short ones to go into. We’re going to dump the rest of the sand in the bucket now and just a regular grade motor oil. It can be used motor oil works fine so just maybe a half cup and you’re going to really want to mix it in there.

So, what this does is keeps your tools this winter clean, rust-free, and you can actually use this mixture year round for storing your tools. Every time you pull them in or out, they get a nice a little sharpening from the sand and they’ll stay nice and lubricated from the oil. So, I like to especially use my digging shovel and store that in as well as my weeding tools.

So, that’s how to clean, sharpen and store your tools for the winter. Next, we’ll show you how to turn off your water sources.