Kitchen Garden Forum

Does anybody know of any specialised 'non industrial' lifting devices available for gardeners which will aid the lifting of heavy and bulky gardening items such bags of compost, lawn mowers, rubbish for the tip, etc in and out of a car boot?

We have a trolley for the physical movement of items from the car to where it needs to be used but it's the actual lifting in and out of the car that's starting to become a physical problem.

I use the wife

Reinforced pair of 4"×2" timber with some clickon / clickoff cross braces. AKA a portable ramp, best suited to an estate car.

Alternatively a trailer for the car, ideally with a tailgate, either way tends to be lower than most cars, especially when the front is lifted up a bit. Also you can stow a home made ramp in it for the mower, even use plywood reinforced with a couple of 3"×2".

Apologies, Primrose, because my reply does not really answer your question, but when we changed to a car a few years ago after using a Landrover Discovery for more than 30 years, we specially went for a Toyota Yaris where the back seats can be folded down completely. As it's mostly just the two of us, we have the folded-down backseats covered with two pieces of plywood and rubber matting which means the back is level with the lip of the boot and everything can be slid out of the car, very useful for anything heavy and, of course, the weekly shop, too. To change it back only takes a few minutes.

Just thought, it might be helpful if you ever changed your car.

I have used a piece of heavy duty ply to roll the mower up into the back of my car but you need a car without a lip at the back for this.