10 Ways to Upcycle Tired Gardening Tools

However much love you put into caring for your garden tools, sometimes, sadly, it’s just time to put your trusty shovels, rakes, and trowels to rest.

Perhaps they have been a long-time Support to you and your garden and have received all the oiling, sharpening, and tweaking they could get. When it’s time it’s time.

Thankfully, in the age of upcycling, this does not mean seeing your garden tool friends sent to the firewood pile or scrap heap.

Check out these fun ways to repurpose and upcycle your overworked and overtired tools that give them a new lease of life and reason to plow on (pun intended).

Some of these ideas need you to have a little woodworking tool know-how while others are a piece of cake to pull off.

Shovels

1. You could use your old shovel as a perch for a birdhouse. The shovel blade can just be stabbed into the earth so that it is secured upright and a small birdhouse could be attached to the end of the handle. Check out a tutorial, here.

2. In the same way, a small tabletop could be secured to the end of the handle to make a cool one-legged garden table. You can move the table around the garden with you as needed.

Source: Great Home Ideas/YouTube

3. Several old shovels could be secured into the earth to create a trellis. This could be a temporary, removable trellis with a twine string between the handles to make a climbing frame for vining plants.

You could also make a more permanent one and screw or nail strips of wood between the handles. Also, instead of a flat trellis, you could tie at least three long-handled tools together at one end to make a tee-pee for your beans to grow up.

4. Here is a way to make a cool birdfeeder from just an old shovel head. The idea is that the head of the blade becomes the place to hold the birdseed while the short metal sleeve is what attaches it to a post.

You will need to bend the sleeve and the shovel head so that it creates a right angle. Secure the sleeve to a post with screws, sprinkle some seed on the shelf, and watch the birds fly in.

Wheelbarrows

Source: Farm Mom/YouTube

5. Your tired wheelbarrow has spent years hauling soil and compost around your garden for you. In its retirement, give it one last fill of potting soil and plant some flowers in it. All you need to do is drill some holes into the bottom of the bucket for drainage.

Source: Gardening Australia/YouTube

6. If the bucket part of your wheelbarrow is clapped out, but the frame and wheel are still in good shape, why not revamp them into a whole new wheelbarrow?

You just need to unscrew the bucket from its frame and replace it with a bed made from scrap wooden planks or pallet wood. You will have to screw the planks to the frame.

Source: Fortzbhel Mama/YouTube

7. You can also make the most of old metal wheelbarrows by turning them into a cool firepit. You will just, of course, have to be super careful, make sure the wheel is secured, and remember that the whole bucket, being metal, will get super hot.

You also don’t want to overfill it, causing it to dump over. Be sure to ‘park’ the wheelbarrow firepit on a heat-proof surface such as a concrete or stone patio.

Rakes

Source: PLAID/YouTube

8. Take the head of an old leaf rake and fancy it up ready for some fun fall decorations. The leaf rake is already part of the autumn theme, but add some fall-colored foliage to its prongs and hang it on your front door.

If the rake head still has an intact handle, you can simply stand the rake up next to your door.

Source: SheKnows/YouTube

9. The head of a hard rake is perfect for being repurposed into a row of hooks. If you clean it up well, it can be brought into the house and used to hang jewelry, keys, or even kitchen and bathroom towels and other paraphernalia.

10. The head of a clean leaf rake could make a fun and rustic postcard or photograph holder. Just tuck whatever images you want to display between the prongs of the leaf rake.

Related Content:

• 10 Tips to Upcycle Everything in Your Closet
• 3 Easy Ways to Add Super Powers to Your Soil This Spring
• The Best Veggies for Beginner Gardeners to Grow
• 5 Tips for Starting a Wildflower Garden
• 6 Tips for Starting a Garden from Scratch
• Ways to Create Microclimates in Your Yard for Greater Gardening Success

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