Tools
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Swifter
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: May-15-2009 at 1:13pm
Any advice on acquiring good quality, reasonably priced garden tools? I'm talking digging fork, hoe, bow rake. Also, do folks use regular flat hoes or hula hoes? I'm curious.
C.S.
AmyPNW
Location: Oregon, Greater Portland Metro
Posted: May-16-2009 at 2:00am
The cheapest tools are the ones you will use the most, regardless of the initial price. If you love a tool and know you will use it all the time consider getting it over something less expensive.
I have some favorites. I prefer an onion hoe over most other types, blade about as wide as most hoes but the length is much shorter, allowing the entire hoe to glide under the surface of the dirt rather than chopping away. It is a flat hoe.
One of my favorite new tools is the Cape Cod weeder from Red Pig tools. It is a little spendy but it is so handy. Red Pig also makes some awesome hand forged trowels, again, spendy but so great to use. These trowels are truly like using little shovels and they don't bend and break like the cheap ones.
I prefer the flat tined spading fork for digging. This is readily available from many places.
I also like a mattock and pick combo for getting those bigger projects dug up. These used to be very hard to find but they are more readily available now. I have seen 3-4 types at Home Depot in the last few years. The tool comes in 2-3 weights. My hubby uses the 5 pound one and I use a 3 pound one.
Good shovels and rakes are also widely available. As long as you like the way the tool feels for you and it works for the job it should be just fine.
Amy
Veggie girl
Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills
Posted: May-16-2009 at 6:40am
I've gone through a lot of different tools, and wasted money on ones that aren't efficient. I've got it narrowed down to just a few essentials.
I really like my Fiskar's digging fork. It has a great handle and a shelf on top of the tines to step on when digging, which helps a lot to reduce fatigue. It has a lifetime guarantee. I got mine at Lowes. It's bright orange handle makes it easy to spot in the garden. The shovel Fiskars makes in the same style is great too.
I also really like my garden hand-hoe (sometimes called a "hoe-matic"), it's a hand tool with a little 4" hoe one end and on the back end it has a three tined cultivator. This was the essential tool when I planted commercial flower beds.
I do use a "Hula Hoe", great for weeding on hot days. I use a conventional hoe to pull soil over the edges of row covers and hill potatoes. I use a bow rake to smooth beds, a wide heavy duty commercial one with a fiberglass handle wrapped in foam at the top.
My favorite 3-tined cultivator is from Johnny's Select Seed, made by Elliott Coleman, it's lightweight and well made.
I don't skimp on tools, good ones make work easier, faster, and more enjoyable. One day my dream is to afford a broad fork, a three foot wide contraption to loosen garden bed soil. They're pretty spendy though.
tommyb
Location: Oregon, Willamette Valley
Posted: May-16-2009 at 9:04am
My name is Tom and I'm a toolaholic. I can prove it my posting photos of my garden shed, if anyone needs proof.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Take a gander at Ames Tools . Look in the catalog for professional tools.
Red Pig tools are great for dreaming. Most of my tools either came from a vinyard supply shop or an arborist supply shop or from yard sales of old, old tools. And Do It Best hardware for handles (especially their longer shovel handles---special order item).
In my wood working circles there is a saying: "Buy a cheap tool and cry every time you use it. Buy a good tool and only cry when you buy it".
I'm being brief as I have some potting on to do. Please pretend I rattled on for 1,000 words...
Tom
Favorite Tool: Potato Hook IP IP: 71.193.236.106 Edit Post Delete Post Hide Post Move Post greenmann
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: May-16-2009 at 9:42am
Although there are special jobs I use specific tools for, in most of my gardening I use one of a handful of tools;
a "mattock hoe" handheld job with a little 3inch hoe on one side and a 3tong claw on the other, handle about 12 inches or so. I use this more than any other tool for weeding, planting and jsut about everything. In fact, i use it so much i have bought extras to so I can loo... um, scatter them around the garden, lol. Last one I bought was 14 dollars at Lowe's. Look for the ones with the brighter handles... my original one (which i still use, when i can find it, lol) has a green handle. Easy to loose such a small tool in the garden. The bright red handled one is much easier to spot.
Digging fork- I recently acquired a long handled one, but for some reason i prefer the short d-handled one I inherited. The long handled one cost me around 25bucks at McClendon's. It works great, I just prefer the shorter one for leverage. I have, but rarely use for more than simply moving dirt, the traditional and square headed shovels. If you can only afford one digging tool, get a fork. Especially if you have rocky soils. Spades are a nightmare in stony soils, but a fork can usually handle the job.
Hand scythe- a few years back I picked one of these up to cut ornamental grasses, and have found that any time you need to cut large numbers of soft stems down, these are far more efficient and easier to handle than a pair of shears. They are made in Japan or Korea or somehting, only cost around 10-15 bucks. Balsam handle so very light, serrated blade is incredibly sharp so be VERY careful to not get your hand in the way.
Shears- I prefer bypass to anvil shears. I don't have a brand prefference, I just watch for them to go on clearance when my old ones go dull. I hate sharpening them, and they aren't usually that expensive, so i just buy new ones when i need them, lol.
Bow saw- I know there are fancy, even foldable tree saws out there that work great, but nine times out of ten if my shears won't cut it I use a standard bow saw. Cuts faster and is more stable than any little dinky tree saw I have found. Maybe some of the real expensive ones are better, but I like my bow saw.
Beyond those few tools, i have a number I will use for specific projects, I have a nice HEAVY hoe with a 9inch blade I love for grubbing out a bed wholsale. If I was doing veggies, i suspect I would use it like most guys use a rototiller, lol. A heavy pick axe works wonders for going deep into the soil. I also have one of those prong things designed to twist into the soil that is kinda cheap, but works great. Both kinds of rakes... oh, and a fireman's axe I inherited, lol, but works great for clearing large amounts of woody brush and hacking at blackberry thickets.
As was said, the best tools are the ones you use all the time. I NEVER use trowels, they seem worthless to me. As do those silly dandelion pullers, lol. A friend used one of those hari serrated knife things, but it didn't do anything for me when I tried it. For one thing, I am left handed and the serrated edge is on the wrong side. So look around and try tools of friends when you can, and see what works for you.
Green Man Gardens
Swifter
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: May-18-2009 at 10:02am
Wow! What a jackpot of advice. Thanks, everyone. "Buy a cheap tool and cry every time you use it. Buy a good tool and only cry when you buy it". ... Ain't that the truth! I've gardened for 2 years (as an amateur, mind you) with a broken $5 Ace hoe and a round-tip shovel, including double-digging 7 3x25 beds. Now I've got some bigger aspirations! (And a little more of a clue about how tools impact my soil--thank you, Steve Solomon.)
C.S.

Gardening for the Homebrewer: Grow and Process Plants for Making Beer, Wine, Gruit, Cider, Perry, and More
By co-authors Debbie Teashon (Rainy Side Gardeners) and Wendy Tweton