Outdoor Organizing

Here are 20 clever ideas to help get your summertime gear in gear.

For Your Gardening Gear

Tending to vegetables should relieve stress, not add to it. So set up a potting station indoors or out and assign all your stuff to a space.
 
1. Shelf. Hang this galvanized-metal shelf ($129, Peddlers Home Design, 205-877-3030) on the back of the house or the side of a shed to store extra pots. Spray the unit with clear Rust-Oleum and it can stay outside year-round.
 
2. Potting bench. This indoor-outdoor garden center ($200, amazon.com) folds up and features two roomy shelves, plus a trellised back for hanging tools and twine. It’s made of fir, a hardy wood that withstands winter weather.
 
3. Bushel baskets. Keep them on hand for fresh-picked produce and weeds ($6 each, michaels.com for locations).
 
4. Pots. Bags of potting soil and fertilizer can tip over easily (and they’re not much to look at, either). Instead, pour the soil into rarely used pots, or try these blue Imusa enamel vessels ($28.50 each, amazon.com).
 
5. Hose organizer. You can’t attach a wall-mounted hose organizer to a brick house or one with fragile shingles. The steel Hose Butler ($45, gardeners.com) sticks in the ground and can be easily repositioned.
 
6. Buckets. Galvanized-metal English Keepers have locking lids so squirrels can’t get at birdseed.