Make Pulling Garden Weeds Easier With The Help Of A Kitchen Utensil

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Sometimes, gardening on a budget looks like shopping for the latest deals on beginner gardening sets. Other times, you may find yourself giving new purpose to an item you already own. Your home is likely full of items with potential for your garden, whether that's as a statement piece or a useful tool. In fact, you may just find yourself saving an item from the trash and turning it into a part of your gardening arsenal — such as an old pair of metal kitchen tongs.

Whether you're cooking indoors or firing up the grill, tongs can make flipping meat and removing vegetables a breeze. However, over time, you may find you need to replace your trusty tongs with a new pair. That doesn't mean the old pair has to end up in the trash. Instead, reduce waste and give new life to a pair of old cooking tongues by repurposing them in your garden. In fact, you can make the dreaded chore of weeding a breeze thanks to the power, grip, and precision that comes along with old metal tongs. What's more they're great for grabbing debris, leaves, or pests that are otherwise just out of reach.

Have you ever made the common mistake of cutting your lawn too short, leading to a surge of crabgrass in your yard? Or maybe despite your best efforts, the occasional weed still emerges. While there are techniques you can build into your lawn care routine to help combat pesky weeds, such as using a mowing technique for weed control, or keeping this lesser-known weeding tool on hand, you can also use tongs to target the weeds in your garden.

While they may not have the same dexterity as your hand, kitchen tongs can be helpful for tackling weeds in the garden, giving you the ability to pull them up by the root. Their length provides extra leverage, and the scalloped heads, particularly if they are silicone coated, grip the base of weeds tightly. From there, you can easily compost or otherwise dispose of the weeds. Even if you're keeping one part of your yard or garden natural, with its weeds untouched to feed wildlife, using tongs can help you target the occasional straggler who makes it into the rest of your lawn.

Weeding isn't the only task that tongs can help with in your garden. Transplanting fragile seedlings can be difficult, especially when it comes to safely removing them from a seed starting tray. While you could buy specialized tongs like the seedling transplant tongs from Gardener's Supply Company, the set sitting in your kitchen drawer will work just fine.