In the Toolshed
Sharon May 16th, 2009
I was recently asked by a magazine to recommend a list of garden tools for new gardeners, and I was surprised by how hard a list it was to come up with. Not because I don’t have favorite tools, but because I’m acutely aware that not every gardener gardens the way I do, and the tools you use depend a lot on your garden style. So I thought I’d write about what I do use – but more importantly, about why I use them, and how one’s body, one’s preferences, one’s style – all these things mean that an ideal tool list is awfully hard to come by.
So let’s start with how I garden. I garden these days mostly in beds, rather than wide rows or other forms – and many of my beds are raised to give better drainage in my wet soil. I’ve also got a lot of rocks. This is important because it automatically makes a bunch of tools not very useful to me – for example, shortly after we moved here, someone gave me an Earthways seeder, a tool many farmers absolutely – the tool makes a row to plant seeds, marks the row and covers it. And I have used it in circumstances that were very useful – but the problem is that the little thingie (so I’m not good with technical terms, sue me 
) that makes the row doesn’t like rocks, or bumps, or uneven ground. It really requires a very smooth seed bed. This is hard to get in my soil. And for the places where I do have it – say, on my raised beds, it is awkward to push a seeder that is elevated – it isn’t the most ergonomic position. While I did use it sometimes during my CSA days, it mostly lives in my garage now.
I also really like to get into the dirt. I know a lot of people who garden in gloves, and whose preference is to work from an upright position, either for physical comfort or simply so as not to get totally filthy. My preference is to get down on my hands and knees, as close to the dirt as possible. That doesn’t mean I don’t use long handled tools – I do, but I find that short handled ones, that do the same things from down near the ground get my attention more. But someone who found getting up and down more difficult (and I admit, in late pregnancy, I used to prefer long handles), or simply doing it another way, might like it otherwise.
The other thing is that I’m a fairly big woman – at 6′ tall, I find it very easy to use heavy tools, and those sized for men. I have a friend who I had raved about a particular hoe to, and she got one – but my friend is 5’1 and weighs maybe 108lbs – she found hoeing with this tool heavy, uncomfortable, and because the handle was long, occasionally found herself pole vaulting if she hit a rock. It was not the right tool for her!
So a lot of the tools I use are particular to one of these factors. For example, if I had to pick a favorite tool of all time, it would be my hand tiller. I got it from Johnny’s selected seeds here (it is the bigger clawish thing in the picture) (btw, I have absolutely no economic connection to any of these companies) - it is the serious version of those little garden three tine things, designed to loosen a little soil. This thing is heavy (not a good choice for those with arthritis in their hands) and tough – perfect for loosening soil while keeping the structure intact, perfect for getting tough weekds I’ve let go, like thistles, perfect for working through heavy mulch to the soil below. I love it so much I have two – and my husband agrees. But it does require some strength to use, and it gets used as much as it does precisely because I like being down on the ground. It is also not cheap – this is a serious and heavy duty tool, and if you gardened less you could probably get away with something lighter.
My husband’s vote for favorite tool on the earth is his scythe, and I’m only slightly behind him on that. Scything, when done properly, is a whole lot of fun – it is a great way of managing grass, great for weeds and field margins, as well as grain crops. Despite our large expanse of grass, we’ve decided not to have any internal combustion engines involved with it. So we either get creatures to eat it, scythe it, or use our little push mower. We’re probably the embarrassment of the neighborhood, but our neighbors are gracious enough not to comment.
If you’ve only ever had a heavy, old American scythe, you may not know how wonderful they are. Modern european scythes are light, a pleasure to use, and simple – the motion is a gentle side to side motion, great for love handle reduction. Remember, in Wordsworth’s poem about the solitary reaper, she’s singing as she harvests grain – the reality is if you can sing while you do most activities, you aren’t working at an intense pace – and scything is really very gentle and pleasant. If you want a scythe, the place to get one is www.scythesupply.com. You’ll need a whetstone and a peening kit as well. Should everyone have one? Well, no – if you live somewhere where you have to keep your lawn tidy by mowing, the scythe, which cuts long grass, won’t do it.
My next favorite tool is a little Korean tool, given to me by my Dad. I haven’t seen the one I have online, but the “hand hoe” listed back at the link for Johnny’s looks a lot like it. The one weakness of the tiller is its large size – it isn’t great for tight space weeding or tillage. The hand hoe, again, given my preference for hands and knees gardening, is a very quickly weeder, and wonderful. Mine is sturdy, and my only complaint about it is that it tends to disappear into the grass, so I’m a strong advocate of brightly colored duct tape or ribbon to make sure you can find it when you put it down. This is one tool for everyone – very light, very small, and just plain pleasant to use.
Also from Johnny’s (they make terrific tools) is my broadfork. If you have raised beds and soil that needs to be loosened in the spring, but don’t want to till, with all that implies in disrupting existing soil structures and ecologies, broadforks are a terrific thing (carefully used, and with some practice, the hand tiller can also do this). Best of all, instead of using your muscle power, you use the weight of your body to loosen the soil, so you don’t have to be strong to do a tremendous amount of work. It is much easier than shovelling – and while broadforks aren’t designed for this, a good one can be used to make beds, cutting through soil (this is more work, but easier than using most shovels).
Broadforks are pricey – mine cost nearly $200, so if you have only a very small garden, it probably isn’t worth the effort. You can make them, actually, and if your soil is very loose, an all wood one would probably be fine. I also wouldn’t recommend them for anyone who has serious balance issues – you use the broadfork by standing on it, and it does require some surefootedness, although no more than average (I’m a complete klutz, and we can be absolutely certain that if it is possible to hurt oneself with a tool, I’ve done it – I’ve never done anything bad to myself with a broadfork ).
Again, unless you have only containers or a very small number of raised beds, you need a good standing hoe – if only because you will not want to be down on your hands and knees when the corn is tall and you barely fit between them standing. I have two hoes I really like. One of them is an ancient old farm hoe that I got at an auction shortly after we moved here. It is a heavy tool, with a rusty old, regular shaped hoe, and I use it almost like mattock a lot of the time for hacking out roots - but I can use it to spread manure, hoe the garden or hack at heavy weeds. I would recommend, if you are going to get this kind of tool, that you actually get an old one – or spend some money and get a good one. My observation is that cheap modern tools are almost always awful – if you’ve ever split a shovel or had the handle of a tool break off in your hand, you know how annoying it is. Try and get tools whose handles you’ll be able to replace.
The other hoe I really like is yet again (sense a theme here?) from Johnny’s – it is stirrup hoe. It is serrated, and slices right through the weeds, and the soil, and doesn’t need frequent sharpening. (BTW, despite saying that, learning to sharpen my tools was one of the best things that ever happened to me – it makes all the difference in the world, and it really isn’t that hard).
Technically also a hoe, but really a digging and tillage tool is my Azada, also known a grub hoe – it is great for digging even fairly deep irrigation trenches, but it works well for making seed rows as well. This is a heavy duty tool, and it is worth noting that in many ancient societies, about the only garden tools were something like a mattock and something like this, made of stone. I got mine from www.easydigging.com, and I like it a lot.
My favorite pruners are my Felco-F8 pruners, but I’ve got several other sets, including a set of floral snips that I sometimes use for the smallest sprouts, and some heavy duty loppers. I have some older pruners that aren’t Felco that we inherited, but they simply don’t do as good a job. If you don’t have anything to prune, obviously, you don’t need these. My husband who is a leftie does fine with our rightie pruners, but if you are going to buy them anyway, you might consider getting a set that are appropriately handed for the person who is going to do most of the pruning.
Spear and Jackson are British manufacturers who make serious, heavy duty, built to last garden tools. This is not a Martha Stewart pretty thing – these tools will be passed on to your kids. I’ve found several at auctions, and they work great. I had a yard sale hay fork some years ago, and then found this one, and the difference is night and day. Now not everyone needs a hay fork, or a potato fork, or whatever, but everyone needs a good spade, and IMHO, the only one that will not break on you (unless you leave it in the rain for two years, and then it is your own fault), and will work forever is the Spear and Jackson, at least that I’ve found. The good thing is that I’ve found them used a number of times, because they aren’t cheap. If you buy one new, they make a large number of sizes. I’ve been told that a cheaper source for really good shovels are lumberyard mason’s shovels – I’ve heard these hold up well also, but not tried it.
While I talk about buying good tools, it is important to note that I accumulated these tools over a matter of years, not instantly. Yes, I’ve spent money on them, but I’ve also used a lot of cheap and crappy tools in the meantime, and they do function for a while. So don’t think you have to go drop $500 on your garden tools – my suggestion would be to hunt around some auctions and yard sales and find some garden tools that have clearly been around for a while. Don’t buy anything made of plastic, and avoid composite handles like the plague. Get a cheap set of basic tools, and then add what you need one or two a year, and through used sources.
Two other tools I really like. One of them is my jab corn planter – this thing is 100 years old, and I’m not sure if there are modern versions available. The idea is that you basically smack it down in to the ground and it drops the seeds in the hole. It is great for corn, but also for bean and squash, and some of them are adjustable for different seed sizes. I use it for easy planting of larger quantities of large seeds. I’ve seen these a number of times around me, and I’d imagine they were even more prevalent in places where they grow even more corn, so they can still be found, old, but usable.
I’m also a big fan of the large recycled rubber trugs that are now widely available – they come in vibrant colors, are cheap, and stand up to just about everything. I love them for hauling weeds, harvesting crops, even hauling water. Five gallon plastic buckets, though, are free from the grocery store, and will haul plenty.
That’s my list – it probably won’t be precisely the same for anyone else. So what are your favorites?
Sharon
- garden
- Comments(19)
My scythe is also my favorite tool. I have one from Scythe Supply and enjoyed using it… for a while. I picked up a new old stock blade on eBay and bought a snath designed by Peter Vito who wrote an appendix to _The Scythe Book_. I like it better than my Scythe Supply outfit. Peter doesn’t sell them from his website anymore but there is a lot of good info on his site. http://scytheconnection.com/
A relative of Peter’s is selling them now at http://www.scytheworks.ca It takes a while to get your package. You have to send him payment by snail mail before he mails out the items. The quality is first rate though and I think the snath design is superior to anything else I’ve sceen or used.
I also use the grubbing hoe from easydigging and like it quite a bit. I have found the pointed hoe they sell to be good for rocky soil and used it more than my grubbing hoe this spring.
Like you, Sharon, I do a lot of my garden work ‘down in the dirt’. I’m short (5’2″), and not very strong, so I find getting right next to what I’m working on saves a lot of physical effort – hand raking a small area is my preference, and getting down on the ground is still easy enough to be the preference. I just wear my heavy coveralls and kneel or sit in the mulched alleyways, scootching over a bit at a time as needed, to save the up-and-down.
I have the usual tools – little shovels, little three tined forks – which get the most use … and then this wonderful Japanese knife/shovel/digger thing from Lee Valley:
http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=1&p=10504&cat=2,51810&ap=1
It’s awesome for clearing away weeds (the sharp edge means you can cut things off at the roots), smoothing the dirt, digging a hole for a transplant (it’s not too wide so you don’t get a big hole), or just general digging around the plants. It’s particularly useful once things get growing and you haven’t as much space to use the three-tined fork (I do a lot of square foot gardening, where things are packed close together).
I also just got a long handled tool whose name I actually do not know – it is a heavy headed thing, with a 4″ wide sharp blade on one side and three rather big sturdy teeth on the other. It works well for mattock like hacking/digging/piling or really rough raking – lately I’ve been piling up half-finished compost as the base for the garden with this thing: we needed more dirt in the garden area, and rather than haul in topsoil, we figured the mostly-finished compost we had on hand would make a decent base layer, but it has some big chunks in it that have to be hacked apart. So far, so good.
If I could have only a minimum toolset, I think I’d have my hori-hori knife (if I had only one garden tool, besides a spade, this would be it), a three-tined hand-held fork, my big hacking mattock doodad, and a good spade and pitchfork (the latter is for the mulch – we live on a farm, so we have pitchforks anyway, but we use straw for mulch so it’s a garden tool too).
I love my Johnny’s broadfork as well. The other two most commonly used tools in my shed are the Wolf Garten multi-star cultiweeder on a long handle, and my Bulldog Tools potato fork/spading fork. The Wolf Garten is a three-pronged cultivator on one side, with a stirrup hoe above it so that I can turn the handle over to hack at weeds. I have two of the Bulldog potato forks, and one is at least 15 years old and still serving well. Like Sharon’s favorite Spear and Jackson, Bulldog is an incredibly sturdy English brand and I expect these tools to outlast me.
For hand tools, I love my dibble (bought from Johnny’s) and my hori hori. I have a couple of Ace Hardware pruners (bypass and anvil) that seem to be holding up well too. I’ve had pretty good results buying Ace brand stuff, but I haven’t owned anything of theirs for all that long yet.
http://www.bulldogtools.co.uk/index.php?mod=3&id=16&rid=1
http://www.wolf-garten.org/index.php?id=648&tx_sytproductdb_pi13%5BshowUid%5D=71&cHash=0e81a446be
A tool I enjoy is my burden cloth. If you have never seen one, they consist of a 4 foot square of heavy canvas with reinforcements sewn around the perimeter…these become handles at each corner. You can haul a prodigious amount of “stuff”. Beats buckets and totes IMO.
http://www.geocities.com/burdencloth/
I’ve used mine for several years and it is only now becoming ragged…it also doubles as the “door” to the outside humanure toilet!
Thanks Sharon for another great article, good tools will become even more important as we move forward.
I would like to recommend the copper and bronze gardening tools based on the work of Viktor Schauberger. They are the best I’ve used.
http://www.implementations.co.uk/

For more information on his work regarding agriculture -
The Fertile Earth” (Volume three of the Ecotechnology-series) – translated and edited by Callum Coats – a selection of original writings by Viktor Schauberger concerning forestry, agriculture and how these may be carried out so as to increase sustainability and fertility.
Gateway Books, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, Ireland; © 2000,
ISBN 1-978-1-85860-060-4 (85860-060-X)
Much like you, I prefer to be in the soil (DIRT! YEA!), and I’m a “sturdy” enough woman to use big, “manly” tools (I’m 5’9″ w/broad shoulders and plenty of strength); but, my favorite tool of all time is small(ish) – my hands! No gloves, no tools that I might errantly send flying into something important (my shin, a row of beans, another person… etc.), just the hands I was born with, nails kept trimmed… If I have to pick an actual tool, it would be the hoe I used as a child in my grandmother’s garden – it’s a TINY hoe, all painted red, but it’s the TINY part that I liked – the widest part of the hoe couldn’t have been more than an inch and a half wide… it got in between EVERYTHING, without snagging the stuff I wanted to keep.
There’s just something about the soil under my nails and ground into the soles of my feet that makes me happy…
–Erika
My all time most loved tool is my stirrup hoe. I’d be lost without it. That and my pocket knife. Other than that, I do a lot of hand weeding.
Most market farmers I know of, myself included, don’t like their Earthway seeders either. My husband uses it for planting corn, but other than that, it hangs in the barn for most of the season. It doesn’t tend to work well with small seed, in my experience, and the hopper needs to be so full that it doesn’t make sense on a small scale.
Personally, I’m in the market for a good wheel hoe.
Hi Sharon,
I’ve been a reader and occasional poster for awhile, but I’m also the owner of EasyDigging.com that you mentioned as the source of your favorite grub hoe.
So glad you like our tools!
The tool business is my way of creating a business that will still be useful in a world of lower energy. It has been amazing to see the sharp increase in people starting gardening this year!
I’ve also just started another business making a new design of a heavy duty clothes drying rack at BestDryingRack.com – another item that may be popular as energy depletes.
Thanks again. Happy Gardening!
I am a short woman (5’2″), with back issues, a recurring shoulder issue, a history of carpal tunnel (wrists), and small hands. I garden mostly in containers, raised beds and foundation/fenceline type beds. No surprise I like shorthandled lightweight tools. And as a fairly recent homeowner, I’ve need to acquire a lot of my tools cheaply.
What I truly covet are the “child” spade and garden rake that were my mother’s when she was a child in the 30′s (but she’s still using them — which is a good thing anyway and speaks to the value of old tools).
I love my spading fork. It came from Ace Hardware. I’ve had good experience with their products (both Ace branded and the other line they carry), and especially when on sale the prices can be very economical and they often have a shorter version of primary tools.
I have a couple of hand forks (don’t know proper name) that I got at the dollar store and they are surprisingly durable; but I just got a great old one at an estate sale, with an adze type hoe on one end and a three pronged rack on the other. I use a garden rake quite a bit.
And while on first inspection they might seem pretty frivolous, I have a set of very small pot tools (7″ long or less, with tiny metal parts), including a spade, fork, and seedling spade that I use extensively at this time of the year. I had (and maybe still have) a very nice and expensive clipping sisscors that I bought to use with bonsai and used extensively for trimming, pruning and harvesting herbs, flowers, etc. but it disappeared somewhere this spring (green handles in green grass — I have to agree about marking tools).
I love my stirrup hoe (from Johnny’s) and covet the broadfork (too $$$) but my favorite new “tool” for this season is a long, replacement handle,originally for my old garden rake’s broken handle, that I am using for a long handled dibble. It sure made planting all those onion & leek plants a breeze this spring. I used it for poking holes for pea & bean seed, too.
My shovels, forks and rakes are all older. I found them at farm auctions and garage sales.
I do like to wear gloves when I use garden tools but plant in my bare hands. I don’t use a tiller anymore because I like to work the soil slowly and really get to know it.
Over the 40+ years my husband and I have had a garden we’ve gone from shovel to a big Troy-Bilt tiller and back again to hand tools,raised beds and cheering over every fat worm we find. I hate gloves and let me tell you what a chore it was to get my hands presentable enough for my son’s wedding yesterday knowing I was gonna have to shake all those lovely manicured hands in the receiving line!!
About the only tools I ever use are a hand cultivator and a narrow trowel. If we are planting big patches of beans or corn my DH will go first with his ancient hoe,make a trough, I come next planting and he comes back and steps everything in . We can plant a lb. of beans lickety split.
Actually the best tool is plenty of bales of straw so you don’t need tools!!!!! DEE
Thanks for this article, as it got me thinking of more hand tools as a means to further my preparedness. I love my stirrup hoe, hand tiller, trowel/spades. I have ordered from Johnny’s for years–seeds, tools, row covers, etc.
Count your seed as a ‘tool’ for gardening, and be sure to either save seed or order them ahead (or both!), to be prepared for NEXT year.
I think this is like your jab planter:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/product.aspx?category=292&subcategory=621&item=9028
One of my husbands: http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/subcategory.aspx?category=292&subcategory=310
favorite tools is this type of hoe ours is actually a Real (pronouced Ree Al ) Hoe. I don’t think the Reals are made anymore, Johnny’s parts fit it though.
We both like spading forks. Our seedway planter works ok, but dh has picked alot of rocks out of our gardens (and still finds more).
I work glove less and down in the dirt as well, when I transplant I like to sit in the dirt plant scooch plant scooch
.
Beth in Massachusetts
Sharon, I second your comments on the Azada, the broadfork, and the Spear & Jackson tools. A few other favorites:
Sieve: I have one that is about 15″ in diameter, and it is really useful to create a bed of very fine soil when planting small seeds like carrots, and then covering them over.
Seed planter: This is a home-made back saver. Simply obtain one of those plastic tubes that golfers keep their clubs in, and duct tape on an old funnel on one end. Place other end over desired planting location, drop seed in funnel, and there it goes. Simple, easy, cheap. Once you have it, you can’t live without it.
Real Rubber Hose: Yes, it is still possible to buy a hose made out of the real stuff; they are much more expensive than the cheap plastic stuff, but IMHO, they are worth it. Real rubber hoses are much more durable, they will stay flexible even in cold weather, they tend to kink less.
Watering can: A lot of times it is not necessary to drag out the hose, there are just a few things that need watering. That is when a watering can comes in handy. Mine is plastic but is fitted with a Hawes rose. This breaks up the water into small streams, with less disturbance of the soil.
Sprayer, stainless steel: I garden organic, and am not a heavy user even of botanical pesticides. There are times when they are needed, though. I’ve invested in one of the top quality stainless steel models, which are built to last.
Lopping shears: Most people that get into gardening also raise some fruit trees if they possibly have the space. I use my lopping shears more than any other pruning tool, they bridge the space between what hand pruners and pole pruners can do; if you only have dwarf fruit trees, lopping shears just might be able to do it all for you.
Fruit harvester: This is a sort of cage-like affair mounted on a long pole. It is designed to be lifted up underneath an apple or other piece of fruit, and there are some protruding prongs above the cage which you slip over the top of the fruit to pull it off the tree and into the cage. This is an easy way to harvest larger fruits that are out of reach.
Collapsable wire basket: Great for harvesting vegetables, then doing an initial wash with the hose outdoors before bringing them in.
Walls of Water, Cloches, Cold Frames: These are all valuable season extenders. Coleman’s Four Season Harvest explains the use of cold frames extensively; cloches and Walls of Water are smaller scale, cheaper alternatives where you just have a few plants to protect.
My current favorite is a warren hoe I inherited from my grandma.
Most of our tools we collected over 30 years ago and are still going. We have a three-tined fork, a wheelbarrow, and a poultry gate that we dragged out of the blackberries when we bought this place two decades back.
My current tool that I rave about, I saw in Eliot Coleman’s Four-Season Harvest. It’s a right-angled trowel. Take any medium-quality steel-shanked trowel, squeeze the blade in a bench vise, slip a pipe over the handle, and pull down. Voilà — a best-practices solution for transplants. Here’s mine, posing with my kneeling station.
First of all, I very much applaud Sharon’s contribution to an utterly important subject, one I have been losing sleep over for several years. What the respondents have all been doing in the comments above is exactly what I think must be done — with the addition that, considering now the big picture of the still hazy tomorrow, we had better get still more serious and more specific, and hurry along.
Going by the near to no attention the topic of future tool availability has received , it appears that most people, including many avid gardeners and other hand-tool users, are quite “in the dark” about this. The era when we can just walk into the nearest garden centre or hardware store, or push a few buttons to contact some mail order source to obtain the needed tool for relatively little money may soon be over; too soon for comfort, in any case… The system we’ve been part of (and addicted to) can only function if oil is plentiful and relatively cheap, which will soon not be the case.
A by-product of the obsession with economic growth has (among other traps) made it so that a large percentage of our favourite tools are now made far, far away. In view of the impending global changes, this is a very vulnerable state of affairs! The tool-making infrastructure of the Western world was created during the fat decades, when resources were plentiful and people not afraid of hard work. Both of these have changed. In addition, many of the industrial-scale machines have been sold to China or sent for scrap. Please understand that without such (very costly to build) machines, anything like today’s equivalent of getting a good digging fork for $50 is an impossibility. Of course, the kind of tools we will need had been made long before the Industrial Revolution by “simple” village blacksmiths. But where are they now, where are their forges, their anvils, their skills? True, there has been, beginning in the seventies, some renewed interest in country living-related crafts, and there are probably more young men standing beside forges today than 40 years ago (the low point, historically, regarding the appreciation of this essential craft). But all those –more ornamental ironwork rather than tool-making blacksmiths — are really just a drop in the bucket if we think of the ships coming from China and the capital necessary to rebuild what infrastructure we have thrown away. Any which way you look at it, we’ll have to really scramble to outfit the 100 million new farmers with appropriate tools…
I hope this little rant will not seem unrelated to the purpose of this forum, and furthermore that it will inspire some lively discussion. For more details on this subject, along with an outline of an action plan, please see http://scytheconnection.com/network/index.html.
Now, to add something along the lines of this forum proper: Although during 35 years of country living we have accumulated more tools than you can shake a stick at, regarding the most essential gardening tool for working in our stony soil — it is a good digging fork (not a spade); given no other steel tool, we could still maintain a garden, however “inconvenient” it might be. Second essential is a pointed hoe (variations of the Warren pattern) so common in Europe in all regions where the ground is not rock-free; not a baby-size version but one capable of moving a decent amount of earth (or soil — not “dirt”!). Adding the little short-handled Korean Ho-Mi digger, we could garden quite happily until the end of time. A rake as well as a few other tools are nice to have but for us not essential, and as a few of you have mentioned here, we also like to do a lot with bare hands.
Syndrome sits behind Molly Ringwald, voiced by Haley Joel Osment; he shouts out catchphrases that instantly update the movie for modern audiences for whom films without commercial sponsorship are difficult to focus on. ,
our garden tools are always made by Stanley Tools because they are the best when it comes to quality and durability-~’