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Helpful Gardening Tools: Every Hydroponic Grower Should Keep in his Belt ^Featured

Written by Erik Biksa
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Here are some useful tools for growers.

Being a hydroponic grower means more than mastering the art of horticulture. It almost always means knowing your way around a toolbox to construct the ideal environment for your crop. Here are some tools every grower should have handy.

Drywall Jab Saw

Besides the really cool name, a jab saw is great when constructing a grow in an existing room, most of which are drywalled. You don’t need noisy, cumbersome power tools to create the perfect holes to run your ductwork, hoses, wires, etc. Be sure to save the hole-cut. If you do it right, it won’t take much to fill the hole back in when you move.

Spade Bit (3/8-inch to 1-inch)

Occasionally, you’ll need to chew a quick, large hole through tougher material, like a 2-by-4 or a plastic barrel. While not as accurate as a hole saw in terms of placement and smoothness, you can buy a whole set of spade bits for the price of one hole saw bit. Spade bits also cut through material faster and don’t waste time by requiring you to remove the cut — they simply rip and tear!

Cordless Drill with Driver Bits

This is essential equipment for everything from routing holes, screwing down mounting brackets or stirring ice water extracts. It’s always a good idea to have a second battery that can be charged up while you run the primary one dry. A cordless drill can be a real workhorse.

Staple Gun

A staple gun serves a variety of uses, including tacking up reflective wall coverings, fastening chicken netting for trellising, securing power cords to walls and ceilings, (and shooting at the back of your buddy’s head for laughs). This is an area where you should spend as much as you can afford. The difference? Better models allow you to use large-diameter staples that can support power cords without stapling through them. They also don’t jam up when you are lifting a sheet of poly over your head while teetering on a ladder.

Headlamp

Building a grow can take you into some dark, cramped crawl spaces and attics. Occasionally, construction also forces you to operate in dark conditions when electrical work requires you to shut off main principals for safety. A headlamp beats a flashlight because it frees up your hands to do the work. And savvy growers have green LED models that allow them to work in the plants’ dark cycle with minimal interruption to flowering.