The best tools for making the autumn harvest quick and efficient

As the temperature drops and darker nights draw in, it’s time for home growers to reap the rewards from all the hard work they’ve put into maintaining their fruit and vegetable patches throughout the year. After all, there’s nothing more satisfying than filling the fridge and cupboards with home-grown food – giving a sense of accomplishment, both for the environment and the wallet!

During a successful harvest, there is a steady flow of jobs to work through, so garden tool supplier Wilkinson Sword has compiled this list of essentials to make this season’s harvest easier, and help put vegetable and fruit patches in the best stead to grow back even bigger and better next year.

As a gardener, having a good quality hand trowel is essential.

Wilkinson Sword's Stainless Steel Hand Trowel is particularly useful during the autumn harvest, especially for digging up and around root vegetables. To collect produce, it must first be determined if it's ripe - this varies for each type of fruit or vegetable. Then, insert the trowel at an angle and gently lift the plant's root while being careful not to damage the plant. Make sure the plant is fully detached from the soil and use the trowel to cut through any remaining roots if needed.

When harvesting vegetables like potatoes or garlic, a hand fork may be more helpful as it can efficiently break up the soil surrounding them and make them easier to remove.If you’ve grown larger produce such as courgettes, cucumbers, or aubergines you’ll need some good quality pruning shears to cut them away from the stems without causing damage. As a general rule, cut one to two inches away from the vegetables and make sure to harvest regularly to encourage even more new growth.

Having a dependable pair of bypass pruners is crucial for tasks such as deadheading and maintaining plant growth. These handheld tools are also ideal for harvesting crops such as grapes, peaches, and chilli peppers, as they prevent any harm to the plant's stems that could be caused by pulling at the fruit by hand.

However, for more delicate produce and small fruits like currants, blackberries, and raspberries, the Wilkinson Sword Pruning Knife is much more efficient. These fruits are prone to bruising, so it's important to use a sharp and precise tool for picking, to minimise damage to the plant's health.

After picking the harvest, make sure to prepare the soil and remove any weeds. With a sharp, wide blade, the Dutch hoe skims just below the surface of the soil to detach weeds’ heads from their roots. Perfect for weeding in between plants and seedlings, the ergonomically designed Wilkinson Sword Stainless Steel Dutch Hoe is easy to manoeuvre, so can be used to target roots while leaving seedlings untouched below. Once the soil is weed-free, get ahead for the next season and plant some hardy winter veg such as lettuce and spinach, or spring veg such as asparagus.

To find more tools to help with autumnal jobs in the garden, visit wilkinsonsword-tools.co.uk

ENDS

Wilkinson Sword Hand Trowel – RRP £14.99

Wilkinson Sword Hand Fork – RRP £14.99

Wilkinson Sword Classic Bypass Pruners - RRP £19.99

Wilkinson Sword Folding Pruning Knife – RRP £12.99

Wilkinson Sword Stainless Steel Dutch Hoe – RRP £39.99

Ends

Editors notes

Wilkinson Sword's mission is to provide gardening tools of premium quality and performance that help make gardening easier and more enjoyable! Reflecting 100 years of cutting excellence, the gardening tools collection comprises highly engineered quality products, including pruners, shears, loppers, stainless steel garden tools as well as a range of axes and multi-tools. Every product in the range is put through rigorous quality tests to ensure the high-quality design, durability and strength expected from this trusted brand. Every product comes with the reassuring stamp of a 10-year guarantee.