Favourite tools

[KG Emma]

In the May issue of Kitchen Garden Edwin Oxlade and Bob Sherman are talking about their favourite gardening tools and why. We would like to include some feedback from our forum users on their favourites.
Mine is a spade but it has special significance for me because I won it in a raffle. It was a spade used by the late Geoff Hamilton to plant a tree in our village!

[Stephen]

My favourite tool is a builder's bricklaying trowel which I use instead of an ordinary gardening hand trowel. (To be precise, I think it would be called a pointing trowel).
It is much better for weeding as you can use either the point to attack roots or in the style of a hoe. It's light and easy to manoeuvre, it doesn't get pushed off course by the stony soil we have. It is stronger in construction than many garden trowels (this may an illusion caused by the fact that it doesn't lift a lot of soil).

Curiously a nearby allotment holder makes the same choice.

I would use a garden trwel only for shovelling compost into a pot.

[Monika]

We have had this thread before, I seem to remember, but for the sake of newer members, I shall repeat my favourite: it's a Dutch hoe, sharp enough to slice cheese with (if you so wished) and beautifully balanced which we found in the undergrowth when we took on a long abandoned allotment nearly 40 years ago. Similarly, an old spade which has been worn down to almost half its size but slices into any soil like into soft butter.

The Dutch hoe, by the way, was made by Elwell, a firm long gone.

[haggis]

I love my Wolf-Garten push-pull hoe - thanks to all forum members who recommended it. I can cover a great deal of ground very quickly and hoeing once a week kept my plot in good order last year.

[Johnboy]

Hi Lady Lettuce,
My favourite is a rotary hoe which was produced in New Zealand and I have been using since about 1955. It is simply a wonderful tool.
Not only used for hoeing between rows but also fetching up a surface tilth ready for sowing about 2" deep. This is done very rapidly with this tool.
JB.

[Parsons Jack]

I too favour the Wolf push/pull hoe. An excellent tool

However, if I was only allowed one tool to use for a season, it would have to be a mattock. It can be used for digging, hoeing, drawing a seed drill, Digging out tree stumps, pulling out brambles roots, pretty much anything you want it to do

[oldherbaceous]

My real favourite gardening tool has to be my flat tined fork.
A gardener gave this to me many years ago, and it was his Grandfathers, so quite a special gift.
I use the fork for general digging, as well as for potato lifting.

It is well balanced and a pleasure to use, as are a lot of the older tools.
I suppose years ago, when gardeners could be digging by hand all day, they had to be a practical well balanced tool.

[Tony Hague]

Can I be the third to praise the Wolf push-pull hoe, it is almost perfect. Easy to skim along 15-20 mm below the surface, the wavy edge even copes with clay, the thin sides don't throw soil but allow working close to the crop, and the concave underside reduces effort. Great bit of design.

[Johnboy]

The strange thing is that hoeing seems to be something that "modern" gardeners do not have in their armoury yet they seem to be amongst the most prevalent and well loved on this thread.
I have another hoe which is a flat heart shaped blade with the bottom part of the heart facing forward with a Vee cut into the tip and the broad part of the heart facing rearwards with a slightly tighter Vee cut into it than the typical heart picture. The handle is welded onto the blade so that by holding it the blade lies flat with the handle in a comfortable position to the user and can also exert downwards pressure.
This is used in forwards and backwards movements and is very effective.
This one I made myself a long while ago. It is very easy to sharpen with a file because it is not made of super steel it is made from a piece of mild steel plate which is what available at the time.
JB.

[snooky]

A favourite tool of mine is the Swoe hoe.I find that I can get close to growing plants with it when hoeing.
Those of you with the Wolf push-pull,which is best,the large or small hoe?

[Tony Hague]

The one that is just a bit narrower than your plant spacing ! The big one is good for between garlic at 8-9 inches. I only have the big one - for now !

[Shallot Man]

Mine is an old onion hoe used by a market gardener in the 30's, then my late father had it, passed on to me, wooden handle was replaced by a handle from an old pair of shears . The left hand side worn down to a pimple, fortunately I am cack-handed.

[haggis]

Snooky, I only have the large push pull hoe but am going to get the small one later this year. I also bought a draw hoe attachment for the Wolf handle - that is really useful too. I agree with Johnboy that hoeing seems to have fallen out of fashion with a lot of gardeners. I am a recent convert and now wonder how on earth I manged without an armoury of hoes.

[Clive.]

At work I would be lost without a good swan neck draw hoe....these hoes were used in this area for gapping Beet etc…but they are excellent for kitchen garden and herbaceous border hoeing...but only if they are of the classic curved top blade type thus having a good keen corner to get in against a plant to fetch out a weed.
Modern examples tend to be an almost square plate welded to a socket and thus are no good because the tall square shoulder prevents good access close up to a plant. ....
We are running on some new old stock Bulldog examples that I have come across.

Flat tine, diamond back potato fork is another favourite as a versatile general purpose fork. At home I have a couple stamped SKJO brand and the last bought new in the early 1980s? was a Ranskil Forge example.

At work too we use flat tine forks...fortunately such a fork is still available in the Fiskars/Wilkinson Sword Power range...albeit with steel shaft and plastic YD handle top rather than the Ash shafts of old....

I have a soapbox hate of modern welded spades...because I like to Winter dig pushing the spade in "down to the makers name". With welded plate spades this is not possible as the angle and bulk of the welded socket area baulks this.

I have my fathers 1940s Spear & Jackson Neverbend 2 grafting spade which has a lovely work shone blade which is an excellent Winter digger although a little short of blade length through use so it has been augmented by a similar vintage Neverbend 1 grafting spade...slightly narrower blade but with little wear, only nicely run in...ex a s/h shop on the coast.

I will always check out any s/h shops on my travels only last weekend a trip to Horncastle saw a £3 purchase of another 1940s spade...lightly rusted and needing a new handle..but exhibiting genuine wear of use under the rust. The wear is from use digging left handed…as I dig, despite being right handed I look forward to getting this "new" purchase cleaned and back in service along with others in my collection.

To be a favourite spade to a Lincolnshire gardener a longer shaft is a must. Carefully worded to avoid getting into car window sticker comments. .....

Other favourites are from the old Wolf range, pre multi change..4 sizes of the 3 tine cultivator drag..and one with 3 or 5 tines...a recent new old stock purchase...I have a bit of a thing about finding new old stock.

Sadly, I go soapbox again here...as one size of Wolf cultivators was spoiled a few years ago by a change of manufacturing style.... This is the one that used to have pointed flat plates let into a slot in the tine...these worked great and pulled through the soil lovely. More recently the plates on the tines have been angled and welded on top of the tine leading to a void under the tine which soil builds up in thus inhibiting pull through the ground. Perhaps for ease of manufacturing? but spoiling the tools effectiveness.

Ask my Mum and she would I'm sure quote her old Sheep Shears as a definite favourite..very multi purpose including lawn edges...we have no sheep. ...
...and mums long handled lightweight fork should get a mention too....long handle with the head of a hand fork..excellent for tickling over the ground in lieu of hoeing.

It was favourites…and not favourite wasn’t it.

Clive.

[John]

Push-pull hoe for me too. I have one of the original type made by Wolf with a fixed handle before they went to the interchangeable head system. Another favorite of mine is what I call a butterfly hoe though I'm not sure if that is its correct name. It is a draw type hoe with the blade bent backwards at its middle forming a wing-like V shape and its superb for drawing out seed drills.
I have several Chillington hoes as well - first-class tools all of them but if I had to pick a favourite it would be the Canterbury fork.

All Hail to the Hoe.

John

PS I think this type of hoe is called a ridger