How to Organize a Messy Garden Shed
Stop digging around for supplies in that messy shed and save that energy for your garden! A streamlined shed will make gardening so much easier. Whether you’re winding down for the season or prepping for another, get that garden shed in tip-top shape. With all of your garden tools in organized locations, you won’t waste time searching for a trowel or stumbling over hoses to get to your wheelbarrow. Organize and stylishly arrange your shed with these tips.
Pare down
Before you get to organizing your shed, go through all of your tools and get rid of anything broken or that you just don’t need. That torn pair of gardening gloves isn’t going to do you much good, and it may be time to donate those terracotta pots that you haven’t used for years. Just like a house, a garden shed can quickly fill with clutter season after season. Make it a priority to go through every item once a year.
Install shelves
Getting all of those pots, trowels, watering cans and other bric-a-brac off the floor and onto shelves will immediately make your shed easier to navigate. If you’re feeling in a repurposing mood, install your own shelves from leftover scraps of wood or even use old window shutters. (Hey, it’s a shed. It’s supposed to look rustic!) You could also squeeze in an old bookcase to store items if you’re not particularly handy with the drill.
Don’t let your beautiful new shelves pile up with clutter. Keep like items together in baskets and bins. Use old vintage tins to store seed packets and plant information. Stow row markers, pens, seed labels, saved seeds and other tiny items in mason jars.
Nail it
Hammer in a few nails on the back of the shed door or on an unused space of wall to suspend shears, trowels, hand rakes and other smaller tools that can easily get lost elsewhere. You could also install hooks to dangle gardening gloves and other gear for easy grabbing.
Clear the middle
You’ll need valuable floor space for big items like your lawnmower, wheelbarrow and potting station or workbench. Do your best to get everything else up and off the floor. That way you can actually see all of the items you have. Utilize doors to hang shovels, rakes and hoes. Install hooks high up to hold items you don’t use very often. Plop baskets in unused nooks or under the potting bench to stow often-used items. (You can also use these baskets later to shield fragile plants when temperatures dip overnight or from frosty weather. Yay for double duty!)
Cover it up
Store half full bags of soil, fertilizer, mulch and birdseed in covered containers to keep them out of the elements. There’s no need to buy new storage containers. Get creative with reusable items. Scour thrift stores and secondhand shops for baskets with lids, wooden boxes, plastic tubs or any other container with a lid that you think will do the job.
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image: Steenbergs
