Ask a Master Gardener: Tool Libraries
We’re almost there, folks: the shortest day of the year. Photography is a dream right now—the golden hour lasts all day long. If only I had some plants still alive to photograph. I am keeping my green thumb busy, though, between forcing bulbs indoors, taking care of my ever-growing houseplant collection and planning my vegetable garden and other garden projects for 2024.
As you think about landscape projects for next year, tools that you’ll need are an important consideration. If you are short on money or storage space (and who isn’t), borrowing or renting tools might be a great option.
Question:
What are tool libraries, and how do they work? Do they really offer tools to use for free?
Answer:
I feel like a big fool for not being more aware of tool libraries before someone asked me this question. They are the bee’s knees!
A tool library works very much like a book library, but you check out tools to use instead of books. They serve a very important purpose: not everyone can afford to pay for or store every tool they need to work on their home or garden. And it’s silly to store—for years—a tool that you only use once in a great while. Boy, do I feel that.
I did some looking around and found a handful of great tool libraries for your consideration:
The Minnesota Tool Library has locations in northeast Minneapolis on Central Ave and St. Paul, not far from Como Park. They offer workshop space and classes, from building your own planter box to make your own stained glass suncatcher. Their open workshop times are frequent, if you want to go and use tools that are not easy to move, such as wood working tools. But this is a gardening blog, so I explored their gardening tools available for checkout—they numbered 144 in December. I was especially interested in the broad fork and the manual sod cutter.
The Minnesota Tool Library does require an annual membership fee, which starts at $55 individual / $75 household per year. Membership includes not only access to tools, but access to their workshops.
When it comes to DIY projects, renting tools can be significantly more cost-effective than buying them. I’ve rented a wet saw for a patio paver project, for example. Hennepin County’s Choose to Reuse website has great ideas around the cost-effectiveness of renting tools.
Ramsey County Library also has a “library of things” located in Shoreview.
Up north? Duluth has a tool lending library that includes such useful things as a posthole digger and a wheelbarrow. Duluth’s Community Garden Program also has a lending library.
All of these options are great, but I am also a big fan of the tool library that is closest to your home: your neighbors. Cultivate relationships with your neighbors so that you can support each other and loan tools to each other. My neighborhood in Minneapolis has two different neighborhood Facebook groups—one is a “Buy Nothing” group where tools and just about anything else you can imagine are traded, loaned, and given to anyone who needs them. The other is a more general neighborhood group but also ends up being a great resource for mutual aid, lost dogs, and contractor recommendations. I have both given and received garden and landscaping supplies through these groups.
I’d really like to hear about more resources for sharing tools—please weigh in below!
Have gardening questions? You can Ask a Master Gardener online or call the Yard & Garden Line at (612) 301-7590.
Other helpful resources:
The Master Gardener Volunteer program
Jennifer Rensenbrink is a University of Minnesota Extension Master Gardener Volunteer for Hennepin County. She lives in South Minneapolis—follow along on her gardening adventures on Instagram at @jenniferrensenbrink.