What’s in the gardening bag?

I’m out and about a lot now visiting various gardens and as a result my gardening bag is overflowing. In need of a good clear out, the contents were emptied this week and it was a bit like opening up the Tardis.

There’s one important item missing though. Can you guess what it is? The answer’s at the end of the post.

1. Leather gloves for those tough jobs but in need of repair. Good job I now have
2. a lovely selection of Showa gloves!
3. Selection of mostly empty seed packets.
4. A dibber (or dibble depending where you’re from). Useful for making holes in the soil for garlic etc.
5. Nether Wallop Paper Potter
6. Various shape & size plastic plant markers
7. Empty chocolate wrapper. Need I say more…
8. Lollypop stick plant markers – can be composted when finished.
9. Plastic spacers for joining poles together.
10. Hand trowel.
11. CD for hanging in the garden to scare away the birds.
12. Scissors – always useful.
13. Ph soil test kit.
14. Secateurs – Felco a favourite present for passing horticulture exams and by far the best I’ve ever owned.
15. Compass for working out the direction of a garden.
16. My favourite hand tool & I’m hoping to replace it for a decent quality one (see 21) one day.
17. Permanent markers for the plant markers – pencil washes off!
18. Ph soil tester that has never ever worked. Now used to make holes or tie string to.
19. Wooden stakes and string for marking straight rows.
20. Penknives of various shape and size.
21. Broken number 16. Favourite hand tool is also a cheap one that has to be replaced annually.
22. Tie wraps that often come in handy.
23. Hand fork.
24. A four-inch bamboo stick that’s useful for measuring distances between seeds when sowing.  Used to have various sizes but appear to have lost them all bar this one!
25. An unmarked rude paperclip. Have no idea…

Have you figured out another useful item that’s missing? It was the main reason I emptied the bag as I was hoping to find some in there………it’s a ball of string!

Do you keep any other useful items in your gardening kit?