rakes Archives - Garage Tailors

Three Tips for Making This Year’s Garden Your Best Ever

May 12, 2015 by Rick Scully

Now that the temperatures are steadily rising, your thoughts have likely turned to gardening. The Farmer’s Almanac predicts our last date of spring frost for Toronto as May 9^th, but how can you be sure your soil is ready to be worked? Take a handful of soil and squeeze. If the soil forms a ball, it’s not quite ready. When the soil crumbles in your hand, it’s go time for gardening. Though you’re probably eager to start planting, to get the best results you must first prep the soil.

Feed and Prep Soil to Maximize Results

Building a rock-solid home begins with laying a solid foundation. Likewise, growing healthy, vibrant plants begins with healthy soil. Dry, sandy or compacted soil isn’t conducive to producing healthy plants. Amend problematic soil by introducing nutrient-rich, organic matter into it at the start of each growing season.

Spread a one to three-inch layer of dark, earthy, finished compost on flower beds and gardens. When used in a vegetable garden, use organic compost or a variety designated for use with edible plants. Work compost into the top six to twelve inches of soil using a shovel, rake or rototiller one to two weeks before planting. Compost adds nutrients to soil and encourages the presence of garden-friendly earth worms.

Compost improves the hardest, toughest soil, creating a nutrient-rich environment where flowers and vegetation can thrive. Strong, healthy plants, grown in a nutrient-rich soil, tend to be more naturally resistant to bugs and diseases.

Deciding What to Plant and Where

You’ve selected the perfect space to plant your garden. Only, it might not be so perfect. For instance, most flowering annuals won’t fare well in the shade. Other plants don’t do well with extended hours of sunlight. Carefully select plants that are optimal for your allocated space.

If the area receives less than six hours of daylight each day, plant vegetation that thrives in shade. Begonias, impatiens, elephant ears, black-eyed Susans and fuchsia do well in shade. If the area gets partial shade, pansies, petunias and snapdragons may be a good choice.Flower beds that receive more than six hours of sunlight daily are ideal for flowering annuals like colourful petunias, geraniums, marigolds, carnations, sunshine impatiens or verbena.

Your annuals will make the most impact if planted in groups of three or more. Each group of flowers should overlap the next to create a powerful punch of colour.

Sunlight should also dictate the makeup and layout of your vegetable garden. Kale, herbs, spinach and scallions can do well with as little as three hours of sunlight each day. Peas, beans and root vegetable require close to five hours of daily sunlight.

While tending to your flowers and garden, don’t forget the perennials. If they aren’t looking as lively and vivacious as they once did, it may be because they’ve overgrown the available space. Divide the plants, relocating some of them. The additional room will allow the plants left to flourish. The rest can be used in another part of your yard. If you don’t have room to plant them elsewhere, consider gifting them.

Once planting is done, give plants a weekly boost by feeding them with a calcium-rich eggshell tea. To create the eggshell tea, store eggshells in a container of water. Allow them to steep for a few days or weeks and continue adding more shells. Water plants with one cup of the eggshell mixture combined with a gallon of water. This calcium-rich mixture will strengthen plants and improve production.

Create a Gardening Space in the Garage

There is no shortage of tools and supplies required to keep your lawn and garden looking their best. Shovels, rakes, hoes, trimmers, hedgers, garden gloves, compost, grass seed and fertilizer can take over your garage during gardening season. Searching for tools amid chaos is frustrating.

When a task becomes frustrating, it’s human nature to avoid it. So make time at the start of the season to take inventory of your gardening tools and supplies and organize them. If there isn’t enough room in the garage for all of your garden tools, consider installing a wall organization or shelving system to create dedicated storage space for each item. A purchased or custom-built garden bench will provide space for repotting plants. However, a repurposed table will achieve the same end.

Once your garden tools are neat and organized, the soil has been fed and you’ve chosen the right plants for your yard, you’re on the way to making this year’s garden your best yet.

How much is a disorganized garage really costing you?

October 8, 2013 by Rick Scully

Are you a Have or a Have Not?

As you have probably noticed, it’s that time again. Yes, the days are getting shorter, the kids are back in school and it’s time to set up your garage for the winter season. In our many years of helping people organize their garages, we have identified two distinct types of homeowners in our area, the haves and the have nots.

1 car garage parks bmw plus 7 high end bicycles, portable workshop and all tools — HAVE: 1 Car Garage – parks 1 BMW, 7 high performance road bicycles, flip down workbench, all garden tools & seasonal tire storage

In this case, we are talking about homeowners who have taken steps to setup and organize their garages for easy seasonal transitions. These homeowners greet the seasonal change with open arms. They know that seasonal garage setup is not a chore at all, but a simple task that can be completed in a fairly short amount of time.

On the other hand, there is the other group of homeowners, those who have not organized their garages. As you might guess, these homeowners warily glance around the inside of their garage. They desperately try to figure out how long it will take to gather up all that clutter, move all that stuff around, store all the summer tools, toys and more away and bring out the winter gear. Sometimes, these garages are so disorganized that homeowners actually consider taking almost everything outside and then bringing the stuff back inside in the order they need. Unfortunately, if they are honest with themselves, they know this will most likely never happen. The end result is chaos or worse.

Back right 1 car central toronto garage — HAVE NOT: 1 Car Garage – cluttered, no storage, unable to park family vehicle, lacks organization

Then, once the first cold snap hits for these homeowners, it’s a mad dash to move the piles from here to there and everywhere in between to make room for the car. Oh, and should the home be equipped with a 2 car garage, too often, there is so much clutter piled up that just one car can be safely squeezed into the remaining space.

The point is simple and easy to understand: an organized garage will save a lot of headaches throughout the year, but especially so when it’s time to adjust for the season change. Look, if you plan on just shoving your stuff into various piles around the garage that’s your choice. Yet, you might want to consider what a disorganized garage is really costing you.

Of course, it’s obvious that a disorganized garage costs you extra time throughout the year. Do you ever find yourself hunting all over your garage for a particular garden tool? Do you ever move stuff aside to get to more stuff behind the first pile? Have you ever sent one of your kids out to the garage to fetch a garden tool and they can’t find it? Then, you head into the garage and it takes you a bit of time to find it yourself. You can see that you could end up spending a lot more time than necessary; if only your garage was better organized, you would save yourself a lot of headache.

Another way a cluttered garage is costing you comes right out of your wallet. Our storage solution team members regularly surprise homeowners when they point out that the homeowner has two or more of the same item such as weed whackers, garden hoses or rakes, one of which was buried deep in a pile of clutter years ago. Or, in a more painful hit to your wallet, what about the car door that bangs into a wheelbarrow or other item in the garage simply because the garage is over stuffed with clutter. Whether a small dent or ding, the damage is unsightly and will most likely need repair.

A third way that a cluttered garage can end up costing also concerns your vehicle. Think of it this way. Think about what happens if a garage is so cluttered that one or both vehicles (for a 2-car garage) can’t comfortably fit inside during the winter. A vehicle that’s worth more than everything in the garage combined has to sit outside and endure the brutal winter; but your garden tools, the lawnmower, the bikes, etc get to rest comfortably indoors. Of course, when you look at it that way, it’s immediately obvious there has to be a better way.

Actually, it’s about this time of year the storage solution team here at Garage Tailors Garage starts to field anxious calls from worried homeowners. Remember, your garage is not just a dumping ground for what doesn’t belong in the house. Your garage is there for your vehicles plus your other belongings. With the right organization system in place, your car and your bikes, sports equipment, garden tools and more can comfortably occupy the same space.

Avoid Seasonal Anxiety Disorder with a Garage Changeover

October 2, 2012 by Rick Scully

Spring cleaning has become a tried and true ritual, the ideal time to gather up unwanted things for a garage sale or trash haul. Fall is also a great time of year to consider a sort and purge to transition into winter and ensure your garage is ready to do what it was built for – protect your car from the elements. But for many people, the idea of saying goodbye to summer and getting ready for winter is so off-putting they avoid it. At Garage Tailors Garage we call this common condition, Seasonal Anxiety Disorder. And the best way to alleviate symptoms is to have an organized garage.

For people with existing garage storage solution systems, the time that it takes to do the seasonal changeover is usually less than an hour. The changeover typically involves transferring the items you won’t need for a few months to the back of your garage and the ones you will be using to the front for quick access. Shovels replace rakes, the snow blower gets more prominent placement than the lawnmower and you can stash the pink, bug-eliminating windshield fluid in a cupboard and break out the blue antifreeze. Any sand or ice melting products that keep your stairs, pathways and front sidewalk slip-free get moved to a basket, which is suspended just off the floor near the front of the garage to grab when necessary. Snow tires are removed from overhead platforms or secure floor racks to be replaced with your all-weather tires until the spring. Typically people power-wash the garage in the spring to remove any salt stains from the floor, but a good soap, water and brush cleaning in the fall wouldn’t hurt.

If you’ve accumulated stuff that you no longer need, get rid of it. Give it away to a charity, have a garage sale or throw it out. Don’t put yourself in the position that led you to organize your garage in the first place. Purging should be an ongoing activity. It’s impossible to keep everything and keeping things you’ll never use again is a waste of space. For example, when kids get older, strollers get replaced by tricycles, which are replaced by scooters and bikes. Unless you’re planning on having more children, don’t keep the stroller. That’s what Craigslist and Kijiji, or the curb with a “free” sign, are for.

However, if the very idea of going into your garage to dig out winter items makes you feel queasy, you might be suffering unnecessarily from a bout of Seasonal Anxiety Disorder. Chaotic garages can be scary, but the problem is easily remedied. If you’ve never organized your garage, or the last time you did was during the past millennium, the best way to tackle it is to start in reverse. First, you decide what you need to keep, what to donate and what to throw away and then organize your garage to make space for your cars. The process takes planning, time and money, but ultimately will save you valuable time and aggravation each time you realize snow is on the way.

You can pretend the good weather will last forever and then cuss and fuss every time you find yourself scraping snow and ice from your windshield in minus 30 degrees. Or you can transform your garage with custom-designed storage solutions that address your personal needs and get into a warm, snow-free vehicle every winter morning.

At Garage Tailors Garage, we’re hoping to eradicate Seasonal Anxiety Disorder so everyone can feel good about getting the garage winter-ready. If you’re interested in knowing what could be done with your garage, we offer free in-home consultations.

Garage Organization Ideas: Tips on Storage of Large Items

November 3, 2011 by Rick Scully

So far, we’ve discussed the motivation to clean out the garage and how to get started. Now that the clutter is out of the garage, garbage has been taken away and non-essentials donated or sold, we’re left organizing everything we want to keep.

Our main goal is to create a space for everything so it can be found easily. In order to accomplish this, we have to maximize all the space available – walls, floor and even the ceiling.

It makes sense to think about the large items first. Tires take up a lot of space. There may be one extra set or two, but either way, they can occupy a lot of real estate.

Depending on the height of the garage, a storage system can be set up overhead to hold them. However, not everybody is comfortable pulling four forty pound tires down, so the floor is an option. In this case, I recommend storing them along the back wall or in a corner as that’s often dead space.

Other large items are garbage and recycling bins. Because they’re used so frequently, they need a spot where they can be securely stored but easily accessed. Depending on the size of your garage, they may be at the back of the garage under a shelf or by the side at the front.

Large tools such as rakes and snow shovels can be hung on the wall. Something as simple as 2×4 pieces of lumber affixed to your walls will work. Just add long nails or screws and you’ll be able to hang most tools. You may also consider a wall organizer which gives you more storage and will hold heavier items as well, including your lawn mower!

Did you know that more people decorate their homes for Halloween than for Christmas? Even though the box of decorations is only used for one month a year, it makes sense to clearly label the container and have it within easy reach.

There are shelving systems available for these boxes as well as cleaning products, tools that can’t be hung and anything else you want to store in your garage.

If you need help organizing your garage, please check out our products page for ideas. We are always available to come to your home for a no cost or obligation estimate. We can take care of everything from the removal of junk, hazardous chemicals and reusable items, to the storage of items that need to remain. Let us know what you need, or want, and together work out how we can help you.

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