Chapter 4
Tools of the Gardening Trade
In This Chapter
• A brief history of gardening tools
• Spades versus shovels
• Selecting essential hand and cultivating tools
• The best gloves for the task at hand
• The real dirt on wheelbarrows and garden carts
The very earliest gardening tool was nothing more than a stick. An early woman decided that planting seeds was easier when she made a hole in the ground with the pointy end of stick instead of her hands. (Remember, at this point men were still out in the forest throwing rocks and spears at wild animals while women were growing crops and raising children.)
We’ve come a long way since that stick. Gardening tools are big business, and the choices are nearly limitless. This chapter helps you determine the tools you simply can’t do without and those that make gardening tasks just a little easier. And you’ll learn about some of the frills and extras. (If you’re looking for tools and equipment for irrigation, turn to Chapter 19. For tool care and maintenance, go to Chapter 25. And for a look at machinery for tilling, flip to Chapter 9.)
Dig This
Starting around 9000 B.C.E., people began planting seeds rather than just gathering them. (Remember the evolution from hunter/gatherer to farmer we learned about in Chapter 1?) First came that digging stick, followed soon after by a rudimentary wooden hoe. Those early hand tools sufficed for about 5,000 years, until a bright farmer figured out how to harness an ox to pull a plow fashioned from a wooden hoe attached to a stone-age cutting tool similar to an adze. (Keep that word handy for crossword puzzles.)
Another few thousand years passed. Around 650 B.C.E., a precocious R&D type developed iron tools—a major breakthrough. The Romans made more innovations and transformed the plow into a heavier, more versatile tool. The tool trade remained more or less stagnant for a thousand years or so until the steam engine was invented and adapted for farming. Not long after that, the gasoline engine was developed and power tools came on the scene.
Food for Thought
A 60,000-year-old digging stick found in Africa might be the oldest surviving relic of its kind.
Wood and metal gardening tools became more refined in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and by the nineteenth century they began to look much like the tools we use today. The materials of today’s gardening tools are more sophisticated—cast aluminum and fiberglass, for example—but the shapes are pretty much the same.
Let’s Call a Spade a Spade
The uninitiated might use the words spade and shovel interchangeably. But just try doing spadework with a shovel, and you’ll soon learn the difference. Shovels have a larger bowl in the blade to move more of whatever material you’re moving. Spades usually have straight-sided blades and are designed to cut through turf and soil. Use a spade to dig deep and straight down; use a shovel for larger areas and to move the soil out of the hole.
The garden spade can be long-handled or short, with a long or short blade. The blade end might be curved, slightly pointed, or cut straight. Although all kinds of spades might be used interchangeably, some shapes and styles work better for certain tasks. For example, a long-handled spade is useful for digging rocks or roots out of a bed.
A spade with a rectangular blade is great for edging beds and making straight cuts through sod.
The difference between a spade and a shovel isn’t all that subtle.
Garden Guru Says
If I had to restrict my tool collection to only one digging implement, I would choose my classic English poacher’s spade from the Smith & Hawken catalog (which is, sadly, no longer available; a similar rabbiting spade is available from gardenhardware.com). This small, short-handled spade got its name because rabbit poachers on early English estates favored it. The long (5½×10½-inch) powder-coated steel blade has a sharp, slightly curved end that makes it ideal for planting or transplanting large annuals, perennials, and small shrubs. It’s great for cutting through sod, edging beds, and digging out tap-rooted weeds. And it’s especially useful in tight, fully planted spaces or even large planters.
Shovel It On
Shovels are great for digging new beds after the sod has been removed, for creating planting holes for large shrubs, and for general digging in loose soil.
In addition to digging, shovels are good for shoveling—moving stuff like soil, compost, mulch, or manure from one spot to another. The best shovel for moving large quantities of material is one with a squared-off blade because it has a wider entry point for scooping.
Fork It Over
The garden or spading fork is another useful—and sometimes essential—digging tool. The fork is built like a spade or shovel, except it has tines instead of a blade. The fork is especially helpful when soil is hard or compacted. It’s also easier to dig in clay soils with a garden fork than with a spade or shovel.
Don’t confuse pitchforks with spading forks, though. Pitchforks are used like shovels to move stuff, like hay or dried manure clumps, from one place to another. They’re not for digging.
You Can Handle It
Spades, shovels, and garden forks have either long or short handles. Generally, the shorter the handle, the easier the tool is to use, especially in confined spaces like established growing beds. But a longer handle gives you more leverage, which is helpful for moving heavy things like wet soil or a root ball.
Long-handled spades, shovels, and forks tend to have straight handles much like a broomstick. The shorter versions frequently end in a D or a Y shape. These open handles create a space to grip the tool and add an extra bit of leverage. In terms of efficiency and utility, there really isn’t much difference between the D and the Y, so select the one that feels best in your hand.
The Y- or D-shape handles on these spades are typical of short-handled types. Choose the one you find most comfortable.
The Material World
Spade and shovel blades and fork tines are made of metal, usually either stainless steel or carbon steel. Stainless doesn’t rust, which means stainless-steel tools don’t need a lot of maintenance. Some of the carbon-steel tools, like those sold by Smith & Hawken and Kinsman Garden Supply, are made of carbon steel with either an enamel or powder coating. My poacher’s spade, for example, is powder-coated and it hasn’t rusted yet, after 10 years of heavy use.
I’m told that soil won’t stick to stainless steel when you dig, but I’ve yet to find one the soil doesn’t stick to at least a little. But don’t worry about it too much. I’ve never found having soil stick to my spade to be a problem.
Some of the best digging tools have a powder coating over the steel (a kind of baked-on finish) that protects the steel and seems to prolong the life of the tools.
Garden Guru Says
The very strongest spades, shovels, and forks are made from forged steel rather than sheet steel. If you’re looking for strength in particular, be sure to ask about the strength of the material before you purchase one of these tools.
Spade, shovel, and fork handles are usually made of wood. Less-expensive tools might be made with any one of several woods, but the best, most durable tools have handles made of ash, often with a metal strap. Some handles are made of fiberglass, which is a pretty sturdy material as well.
Hoes, Rakes, and Other Infamous Characters
Hoes and rakes are the workhorses of the tool trade. When the soil has been thoroughly dug and moved around, the hoes, rakes, cultivators, and weeders go into action. These are generally long-handled tools made of the same materials as spades and shovels.
Hoes
The hoe is the ancient tool that came into being right after the digging stick. No more than a sharp-edge blade of metal attached to a long handle, the hoe is primitive but essential. Use it to chop through the soil and push it around a bit. You can also use your hoe to weed between individual plants or rows of vegetables and to break up the surface of the soil around plants so water and fertilizers can penetrate into the roots.
The basic hoe has some specialized offspring: a warren hoe has a heart- or arrow-shape blade and is used for making furrows or rows. An eye hoe has a circular hole at the top center of the blade. It’s useful in hard-packed soil or soil with lots of thick roots. A circle hoe has a circular blade. It can get in close to roots, and it’s also useful in rocky soil. The blade comes in several sizes.
The Dutch hoe is also called the scuffle hoe; it has a flat blade with a horseshoe-shape shank, and is used to cut through weeds in a push-pull motion. A collinear hoe has a small, very sharp, replaceable blade for weeding. And a grub hoe is a very heavy-duty hoe with a sharply angled blade. It’s used for tough digging like trenches.
Rakes
The garden rake is a classic tool. Think of Beatrix Potter’s illustrations of Farmer McGregor chasing Peter Rabbit with a rake in his hand.
Unlike the fan-shape rakes used for collecting leaves, garden rakes have long handles and a head with short, steel tines set perpendicular to the handle. This essential tool is used to move a thin layer of soil around the surface of beds; to separate stones; to loosen roots and light debris from prepared soil; and to pull soil up into mounds, hills, or furrows.
Compost Pile
Any tool left lying on the ground unattended is potentially dangerous. This is especially true for rakes left tine-side up. It might be hilarious when one of the Three Stooges gets clocked by the rake handle when he steps on a rake head, but it’s not a bit funny if it happens to you or an unsuspecting passerby. Always move your tools out of harm’s way when you’re not using them.
Getting Handy with Hand Tools
No gardener could survive without a few hand tools. The essentials include a trowel, a hand fork, a cultivator, and a pronged weeder. Most hand tools are made of the same materials as their larger relatives, described earlier in this chapter. Look for similar construction, too.
The key to a good hand tool is the feel of the handle. Get one with a smooth grip that won’t splinter and isn’t too big for your hand. Ash and beech are probably the top choices. It should also have a sturdy steel blade or tines. Cast-aluminum tools are a good choice if you have trouble with heavy tools, because they weigh less. And hand tools like Good Grips, with handles made of a soft, cushioned material, are great if you have arthritis or other conditions that make gripping difficult.
Indispensable Trowels
When it comes to trowels, I break my own rule about only buying the best-quality tools. I tend to lose at least one trowel a year and sometimes more. I can’t tell you how frustrated I get when I search for my trowel and can’t find it. A trowel is absolutely indispensable, especially for people like me who do a lot of container gardening.
Trowel blades should be pointed enough to pierce the soil and break up clumps, and wide enough to allow you to dig a hole pretty quickly. Transplanting trowels have long, narrow blades designed for making a deeper hole. I have one with depth markers that’s handy for planting things like onion sets because I can see exactly how deep I’m going.
Handy Forks and Cultivators
The hand fork is a mini spading fork with wider tines. It’s designed to turn over the top few inches of prepared planting beds or containers.
The hand cultivator has three bent prongs, usually with the center prong set higher than the other two. Use this handy tool to aerate surface soil and loosen soil around shallow-rooted weeds.
Food for Thought
Tools are one of a new gardener’s largest expenses, and it usually pays to buy the best. Cheap tools tend to break easily. But those on a tight budget won’t necessarily have to break the bank to have the tools they need. Yard and barn les, Freecycle, and Craigslist are good sources for used tools. Also, look for end-of-season or off-season sales at hardware stores and farm supply vendors.
Wild About Weeders
Not an essential tool in everyone’s garden, the hand weeder is indispensable where tap-rooted weeds like dandelions and thistle are a problem.
A hand weeder is a long, thin metal rod with a V-shape point on the end that lets you get down deep into the soil to root out weed menaces once and for all.
Grab Your Gloves
Some gardeners consider gloves a necessity, while others don’t see the need for them. For the first 20 years of my gardening life, I refused to use gloves except for the most brutal tasks like pulling out bullthorn or poison ivy. I liked getting my hands dirty, and I didn’t care much about the condition of my fingernails. On the flip side, a former neighbor, with impeccably manicured nails, would don a pair of flowered gardening gloves for every garden task, including watering potted plants and deadheading perennials. To each her own.
These are my favorite type of gardening glove—knit cotton with rubberized palms and fingers. They offer plenty of protection without compromising dexterity.
©iStockphoto.com/Richard Goerg
You can find almost as many garden glove designs as there are garden tasks to do. Here are a few types of gloves good for general gardening and for gardening where chemicals and water are involved, along with their pros and cons.
Cotton gloves and cotton/polyester blend gloves are inexpensive, but don’t hold up to heavy use. They’re often too bulky for delicate work, too. And they’re not always available in varying sizes. Knit cotton gloves with rubberized palms and fingers offer good dexterity. They’re sturdy and come in various sizes. All these gloves are washable.
Calfskin or goatskin gloves are comfortable and form-fitting and can offer good dexterity. The fingertips tend to rip with heavy use, and they can be pierced by sharp thorns or rocks. Pigskin gloves are comfortable, stronger than calf or goatskin, and offer good dexterity and better protection from thorns and sharp rocks. Cowhide gloves are strong and durable and are excellent protection from thorns and sharp rocks, but don’t offer great dexterity. None of these animal skin gloves are washable, and they can become stiff after getting wet.
If you’re gardening with chemicals and water, try these gloves:
Lightweight rubber gloves offer protection from water and noncaustic chemicals. Some brands come in different sizes. These gloves offer little dexterity, though, and rip easily. Similarly, latex gloves offer protection from water and noncaustic chemicals. Some brands come in different sizes. Latex gloves do offer good dexterity; however, they rip easily, and some people are allergic to latex.
Heavy rubber gloves are sturdy and offer good protection. Some brands come in different sizes. They’re often bulky and offer little dexterity. PVC gloves offer good protection, and they’re less bulky than heavy rubber gloves. Some brands come in different sizes, too. They cannot be used with gasoline because gasoline dissolves plastic, especially PVC.
Compost Pile
Always wear gloves when you handle chemicals like herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers. Gloves are also useful when you’re doing a lot of heavy digging or extensive planting, to help avoid painful blisters. Gloves are very handy for some gardening situations, particularly for the previously mentioned bullthorn and poison ivy removal.
Here are some other features to look for in a good gardening glove:
• Extra-long cuffs to protect your lower wrists and forearms from scratches, poison ivy, dirt, and so on.
• Small interior seams on cotton and leather gloves for comfort.
• Tight-fitting knit cuffs on cotton gloves to prevent soil from slipping inside.
• Rubberized “gripper” dots on palms and fingertips for good dexterity.
• Good range of sizes for best fit.
• Thermal lining for work in cold weather.
• Cotton lining for absorbency.
• Seamless lining for comfort.
• Nitrile exterior for resistance to caustic chemicals.
It’s probably a good idea to get into the habit of wearing gloves whenever you work in the garden. It’s just a little bit of protection. I try to use them, although I often forget and I do tend to lose a few pairs every year. But when I do remember and when I can find them, my fingernails are a lot more attractive.
A Little Help: Wheelbarrows and Carts
Only those who garden in tiny spaces can get away with not having a garden cart or wheelbarrow. There’s always so much to haul around—bags of peat moss, mulch, or compost; flats of plants; ball-and-burlap fruit shrubs; tools; debris; or a big harvest of zucchini.
Get some wheels. They really help.
Workhorse Wheelbarrows
Wheelbarrows are an ancient device dating to not long after the invention of the wheel. Some wheelbarrows have two wheels, but most have one wheel in front and two handles with a tray or cargo box that together form a triangle.
Because the weight of the payload is carried on the wheel, the wheelbarrow enables you to move heavy things with relative ease. They are highly maneuverable, but they can be very tippy.
The old-fashioned heavy steel wheelbarrow with wooden handles is more or less a thing of the past for most home gardeners. Today, sturdy polyurethane trays on lightweight aluminum frames are a better choice.
Great Garden Carts
A slightly newer invention, garden carts are more popular with home gardeners because they tend to have larger payloads and are far more stable. Usually shaped like a large box with a wheel on either side and a U- or T-shape handle, garden carts are less maneuverable than wheelbarrows. But as mentioned, they are less tippy.
Carts range from the standard treated plywood with steel handles type to the rugged molded polyurethane varieties.
Here are some other things to look for when choosing a cart:
• Capacity from as small as 4 cubic feet to a whopping 12 cubic feet
• Flat bottom for carrying flats of plants or baskets of produce
• An opening at the front for easy dumping
• Coated or galvanized finishes on metal for rust prevention and durability
• Good balance
• Light weight
The Least You Need to Know
• Spades help you cut through sod and dig straight, deep holes.
• Use a shovel to dig in large areas of loose soil and to move large quantities of soil, manure, compost, and so on.
• Spading forks are good for digging into hard, compacted, or clay soils.
• Always buy the best-quality tools you can afford, and be sure to put them safely away when you aren’t using them.
• The right gloves can offer the protection you need for any given garden task.
• A garden cart with a large enough cargo capacity for your needs can be a real time- and back-saver.