MOTHER’s Homemade Garden Toolshed

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The real key to our shed's usefulness, though, is its location: a high-traffic area at the west end of the house, close to the kitchen door and against an otherwise unused wall.
The real key to our shed's usefulness, though, is its location: a high-traffic area at the west end of the house, close to the kitchen door and against an otherwise unused wall.
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Diagram: Cross-sectional view of MOTHER's homemade toolshed.
Diagram: Cross-sectional view of MOTHER's homemade toolshed.
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Caring for garden tools in three steps: [1] Caked earth is removed with a wooden scraper.
Caring for garden tools in three steps: [1] Caked earth is removed with a wooden scraper.
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Caring for garden tools in three steps: [2] The implement is scrubbed clean in the barrel bin with a brush.
Caring for garden tools in three steps: [2] The implement is scrubbed clean in the barrel bin with a brush.
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Caring for garden tools in three steps: [3] The tool is plunged into a mixture of sand and vegetable oil to prevent rust.
Caring for garden tools in three steps: [3] The tool is plunged into a mixture of sand and vegetable oil to prevent rust.

MOTHER’s homemade garden toolshed solves an age-old problem. Good tools are a gardener’s best friend–unless, that is, the tools never seem to be close at hand when you need them! (See the homemade toolshed photos and diagram in the image gallery.)

Such was the situation not long ago at MOTHER’s one-acre self-reliant homestead. It’s true we’re pleased with our progress so far in applying the principles of permaculture–in which all elements work together in mutual support. But we realized one day, when retrieving a tool (for the umpteenth time!) from one of our beds behind the house so we could use it in the herb bed in front, that there was a missing cog in our otherwise nicely turning wheel. We needed a single, central place in which to maintain and store our garden tools.

The small, closet-like shed you see here solved that problem. Though its construction is conventional, it has some interesting, unusual features: The horizontal barrel bin is used both for cleaning tools and for soaking flats of seedlings (which are often best and most easily watered from below). And the sand bin contains a mixture of coarse sand and vegetable oil in which tools are plunged for rust protection before hanging them up for the day.

The real key to our shed’s usefulness, though, is its location: a high-traffic area at the west end of the house, close to the kitchen door and against an otherwise unused wall–a place that we pass whenever we’re walking to or from just about anywhere else on the homestead. So getting, cleaning, or putting back a tool no longer requires a special trip; we just stop at the shed on our way to wherever we’re going.

Construction of the Homemade Garden Toolshed

  • Published on Sep 1, 1985
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