Wide enough to cover a fence paling in one pass, and synthetic so it holds its shape in a water based paint instead of going floppy on you halfway down the run.

Masking tape with the drop sheet already folded in, so you tape the skirting and pull the sheet down over the floor in one go.

Four widths of flexible steel, because a 25mm crack and a 100mm patch want different blades and doing both with one is how you end up sanding for an hour.

Scrapes, opens the tin, cleans the roller and tools a silicone bead flat. Lives in your pocket and does about 5 jobs.

The little kit for architraves, window frames and the back of a door, where a full roller is just too much gear. Tray, frame and sleeve all in the one packet.

Fifty metres for three and a half dollars, which is the cheapest insurance on the page. Pull it off while the paint is still slightly soft and the line stays sharp.

Tap adaptor, two hose fittings and a nozzle in the one packet, so the whole connection is sorted in one go.

Soft grip and a trigger you can hold for 20 minutes without your hand cramping, which matters more than it sounds once you're watering pots most evenings.

Brass right through, for the split that's always at the tap end. Cut the perished bit out and the hose lasts a few more summers.

Sits on the lawn and gets on with it. A slow soak over an hour does more for a lawn than 10 minutes with a hose in your hand.

The plastic version of the same repair for the hose that lives on the reel and comes in out of the weather. Under 8 dollars and it takes about 5 minutes.

The little threaded piece that makes a sprinkler and a hose talk to each other. It's always the part that's missing and it's always the reason the whole job stops.

Blended with a wetting agent, so rain and watering actually soak through instead of beading on the surface and running down the side of the bed. Two bags does a decent front garden.

For building a new bed or lifting a tired one that's gone hard on top over winter. Holds water and nutrients, and it's ready to plant into straight out of the bag.

This one goes into the soil rather than on top of it. Fork it through before you plant and it opens up the heavy clay a lot of blocks around here are sitting on.

The one that suits a shed from now until autumn. Clean, forgiving, and happy anywhere from 18 to 22 degrees, which is roughly where a Strathalbyn shed sits overnight in spring.

A proper lager yeast, and it wants 10 to 15 degrees to do its job. Worth knowing that it'll stall in a warm shed, so this one is for a fridge with a controller on it or for next winter.

Takes a wash out to 13 per cent and holds up when the temperature climbs, which is exactly the problem a warm shed hands you. 13 on the shelf.

Breaks down the long sugars a normal ferment leaves behind, so you finish drier rather than sweet and stuck.

Dextrose and maltodextrin already blended, so you get more body than plain sugar without having to work out the ratio yourself. The one to start on.

A full bodied English style ale and about the most forgiving kit on the shelf, which makes it the right one to run while the shed is still settling into spring temperatures.

Forty grams gets out past the weed line off a jetty without a huge cast, and silver is the one that keeps working when the water's still carrying winter colour.

Tied up ready to go, which on a Sunday morning is the difference between fishing at 7 and still sorting line out at half past. Herring are the first thing to come on as the water warms.

Barbed, so a squid that grabs it stays on rather than letting go halfway up. Cheap enough to carry a couple, because you will lose one on the reef eventually.

The size that holds bottom in a bit of run without dragging the bait off the spot. Buying sinkers is the job everybody forgets until they're standing on the jetty.

Two hooks and a bit of red flash already snelled on, which is all a whiting rig needs to be. Take 3 because you'll donate one to the bottom before lunch.

Twenty one hooks in the packet, and the long shank is what lets you get a hook out of a whiting without wearing the gills. Size 8 is the one you'll use most.

Two hundred and eight bits, sockets and drivers in a case that shuts properly. It's been sitting here since April and at this price it's the cheapest way to fill an empty toolbox.

Goes in the line at the tool end so you can wind the pressure back for a spray gun without touching the compressor. Handy the day you need it and invisible the rest of the year.

Angled head so you can actually read it on a dual wheel or behind a mag, and it goes to 60 psi which covers a loaded trailer as well as the car.

Two hundred millimetres, so it lives in the toolbox rather than the shed wall. Takes a rusted bolt or a bit of fencing wire off without wrecking a hacksaw blade.

Small enough for the glovebox and it charges off the same cable as your phone, so there's no packet of dead AAs in the drawer. Ten of them here.

German made, 115mm, and 60 grit is the middle one that takes weld spatter and rust back without gouging the steel underneath. Eleven left on the shelf.