GARDEN PROJECTS: Pinup Toolchest

How many times minor chores around the garden are neglected because there isn't time to sandwich them in between major occupations! If it didn't take so long to get the trowel from the garage. If the plant labels were handy. If you weren't dressed for the office. If dinner weren't almost ready to go on the table. That kind of thing. Well, here is a contrivance for eliminating some of those ifs. It houses, by the backdoor or on a post by the garden gate or in almost any convenient location, a few of the simple tools on which the performance of so many five-minute jobs depends. It is weatherproof, caterpillar proof, alibi proof. If you need a new washer or a different nozzle for the hose, here it is. If a shrub needs a bit of pruning, here is a pair of shears. When a flat of seedlings is ready for blocking, the sharp mason's trowel is ready on the hook. When you bring back a few cuttings from a neighbor's garden, here is the "rooting" hormone ready to apply on the way to the cold-frame. As the lawn mower squeaks past to begin its appointed rounds, here is the oil can. In short, here is a devil's own invention to suggest bits and pieces of work for momentarily idle hands to do. In addition, of course, it serves larger operations; but essentially this pin-up dispenser is merely a pennyin-the-slot adjunct to the tool-shed proper. The working drawings on the next page suggest, to anyone who would want to build it anyway, all the necessary procedures. Many of the details are, of course, optional such as the caterpillar-proof screen mesh at the bottom and behind the ventilation holes above the door, or the "secret panel" latch for the door itself. (The only advantage of the latter is that since there is no handle showing, meddlers won't find it so easy to borrow your tools. They won't, presumably, know that a smart poke over the latch will make the door spring open.) It isn't necessary to hang up the pencil, but the loop illustrated immediately identifies it as belonging here and nowhere else. The cloth is for drying wet tools. Plywood (the 1-inch weatherproof kind, which is available everywhere, or ordinary 3/4 inch pine boards are good building materials. All screws and fittings should be brass. Tools required: saw, twist drill or brad-awl, brace and ½ -inch bit, and a plane plus tacks, hooks, eyes, hinges, and sandpaper. It should take two or three winter evenings at most to make. When it is finished and painted, hang it on hooks near the potting bench. Then when outdoor work begins, hang it on duplicate hooks where it will be handiest to the garden, the dinner table, the station bus wherever it will be most handy most often.

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