I have fond memories as
a kid of accompanying my father on what seemed a
weekly ritual tohelp with the maintenance of our acreage and garden. Pruning, trimming, brush removal,
and general gardening tasks including planting, transplanting and weeding. Not exactly what a teenager
wants to be doing, but what always made the job easier and
almost enjoyable was my father's commitment to selecting the highest quality tools available.
Gardening tools that are
sub-par, breaking or not sharp
can make the hard work of gardening un-bearable. On occasion, my father or I would pick up a poor quality tool
to get us by, which would
invariably fail and break at the most in-opportune time, occasionally with damage
to both our agricultural and ourselves. Over time we learned, as you may
have, that quality pays for itself, in very short time, from the finished
product, joy of use, and even from a safety perspective.
Now in a new home with a new yard, I am in need
of new lawn
and yard care tools. PremiumKnives.com, of course, has a huge selection of professional quality
tools, however, what to choose for my urban garden? Even more I wanted to
assemble the complete, affordable gardening and yard care tool box for use in
both
urban and rural households. And who better to help me answer that question and test products? The answer
was easy, my father, a lifetime gardener of a rural acreage. After a trip to see my father with a
variety of test samples in tow and some time testing tools involving a lot of sweat, digging, weeding, pruning,
sawing, and cutting, we believe we discovered the perfect
professional quality tool kits for the avid urban and rural gardeners.
More of a rural farmer with 20+ acres, my father's hand tool
requirements for yard care were a little more expansive and commercial
oriented, than my needs. My father's kit included a good utility knife, a small military shovel, a couple quality machetes (or as he puts it, really big knives), pruners,
a lopper, a pruning saw, and some high quality hand tools for the "dirty knees"
tasks of gardening. My requirements were a little different for my standard urban 1/4 acre lot.
I have quite a bit of ornamental grasses that require yearly trimming, some
smaller trees that need occasional pruning, and general lawn and garden tasks of
the urban dweller, as well as, several varieties of thorny bushes to keep in check.
For me a good utility knife, a small military shovel,
one small machete, a pruner, a pruning saw for branches over 1 inch, and a
selection of hand tools for basic gardening and flower transplanting, were my
tool requirements, all to assure my wife and neighborhood association were kept happy.
The only problem we had during the
testing was when I attempted to leave with the test kit. My father had liked our final picks so much,
he refused to let me leave with it and bought the whole set.
And the versatility
winners are...
Mini-Shovel
We now understand why every military in the world has a version of this little
shovel. An old design, duplicated from a Soviet Special Forces shovel, the Gardeners 20 inch
Mini-Shovelwas hands down, the most
versatile tool we tested. At roughly 20 inches overall,
with a carbon steel head that can be sharpened, and a hardwood handle. This little shovel aided in everything from
weeding and transplanting, to pounding in marker stakes,
to an impromptu machete (my father also sharpened a side edge of his shovel). With a roughly 6" X 6" head
the little shovel proved indispensable for the larger transplanting tasks, spreading mulch around plants, and making mounds for pumpkins that
a small hand trowel would be just too small for and a standard shovel too big. As a side benefit the 20"
length and 6" wide head provided a handy measuring tool for consistently
spacing plants and seeds. It was nicknamed "Goldilocks", the Goldilocks of
shovels, and was just right for most tasks.
Utility Knife
Second on the list of must have items, was a general purpose
utility knife. The recently reviewed and tested Lightweight Spyderco
Delica 4 with a partially serrated edge is my pick as the best knife suited for lawn and
garden type tasks such as cutting and opening bags, containers, and various cords and twine. The Delica
knife features a locking blade, easy one-handed opening and closing, and a handy
pocket clip so it is always at the ready, clipped securely to the inside of my pocket. The partially serrated
razor sharp edge cuts through just about anything with quick and easy efficiency. This knife has become my gardening knife and is always with me while
tending my little plot of property. As the person initially responsible
for getting me into knives, my father knows the value of a good knife, especially
on a farm or rural setting. During testing, he became so enamored with my knife that it was
more often "found" in his pocket than mine and later he mentioned with a
grin that he had "lost" it and would look for it after I left. The Spyderco Delica has
been the choice of outdoor enthusiasts for almost two decades and continues to be one of the most popular all
time sport utility knives ever made.
See the full PremiumKnives.com review here. The biggest downside of the knife
is, return cannot guaranteed, should it be used by a friend or family member.
Pruners From pruning roses, trimming back bushes and shrubs, to removing
unwanted vines, or helping in harvesting of thick vined produce, a clean cutting pruner is a tool that simply cannot be
replaced or duplicated. There are two basic styles of hand pruners to consider. First, the all
purpose bypass pruner in which the blades pass each other like a pair of scissors to complete a cut. The
other style is the anvil pruner, where the blade completes the
cut by striking a softer material, an anvil. Both styles have their benefits. Softer or live branches
are best suited for a bypass pruner and is typically the best choice as an all around pruner. An anvil pruner makes a clean cut
on dry wood or branches without the branch unexpectedly twisting - a handy benefit when trimming
dry thorny rose bushes. Our two picks were the
4250
Corona Bypass Pruner,and the
3110
Corona
Anvil Pruner.
Although both are relatively inexpensive they are older professional quality designs that have be
perfected over the years by Corona. Corona is one of the largest and oldest operating professional
quality horticultures suppliers in the world.
Extended Lopping & Pruning
Due to our differing requirements my father and I disagreed on the
next tool, which was the choice of a lopper or an
extended reach pruner. As
an urban-ite, I have much more use for a the 46"
Long
Reach - Cut N' Hold Bypass Pruner to cut and prune items out of my reach.
Additionally, I liked it for the convenience of being able to prune back my rose
and blackberry bushes all while keeping thorns at more than arms reach away.
With numerous trees, a sturdy lopper is required for yearly maintenance
on my father's acreage. His choice was
the
Compound Action Bypass Lopper with extendable handles. This lopper's heavy duty steel handles
expand from a compact 28" to a whopping 41" via a patented handle twist locking mechanism and provides lots of
reach and/or leverage when required. Additionally, the compound action makes cutting even the largest
limbs an easy task. A feat my father demonstrated while removing some
fairly sizable pines with 2" trunks.
Cutting & Sawing
As a kid I remember using a machete
and a little pruning saw quite a bit, two tools which I still seem to us in my urban landscape and also while
helping on the acreage when clearing brush and pruning larger limbs. Although
PremiumKnives.com has an expansive machete selection, our
favorites were 14 inch
Cane knifeand the 18 and 22 inch
Machetes.
The cane knife is lighter weight and is the perfect urban home's tool for removing ornamental grasses, mass vine removal,
vegetable harvesting, and general purpose brush clearing. The hooked top allows the grass to be gathered and
bunched for easier cutting. The heavier 18 and 20 inch machetes are best suited for larger commercial or
acreage applications where branch and larger diameter tree sapling removals are
necessary.
The
6.5 inch Folding Curved Blade Razor Sawis a god choice for someone requiring a lighter duty
pruning tool for branches up to 2 inches
and
can be carried easily in your pocket, until needed. Even living in a urban
setting, I occasionally have the need to trim a larger branch or two and simply
don't want the hassle and noise of dragging out the chainsaw. The 20 and
24
inch Bow Saws
fit the bill perfectly.
The bow saws are like having a light duty chain saw and can easily slice
through most 2-4+ inch
branches in under a dozen strokes and with nominal effort. Also a great tool for Christmas tree felling
and trimming. Clean cutting, simple in design, and use, bow saws are one
of the best overall tree pruning tools for the urban and rural gardener.
Additionally they are inexpensive, light, quiet, and efficient.
Garden Hand Tools
Although that handy mini-shovel was a
great all around tool, some smaller
gardening hand tools are required for detail work. The
stainless steel planting dibble was my favorite tool
for easy planting of seedling plants and small bulbs. The dribble penetrated Nebraska's hard soil easily.
The weeding hoe a
close second, for most needed hand tool, for the detail of hand weeding. My father's choices were the weeder with fulcrum for easy weed pulling and the carbon
steel bulb planter for drop in bulb planting. Aside from jointly
agreeing on the need for a transplanting trowel, we
agreed on the out standing durability
of the hand tools I had brought to test. As recently featured
and reviewed in Fine Gardening Magazine, PremiumKnives.com's hand tools are
some of the best available anywhere and feature full stainless steel construction and real hardwood handles.
Our hand tools are based on time tested designs that will hold up with hard use
and bring you years of service.
Our
Conclusion
Although we tested over 100 different products,
from the best that PremiumKnives.com has to offer, and all were exceptional,
we believe these products represent the basic tools that all amateur and
professional gardeners should have.
From our list of the best of the tests, both my father and I put together
Urbanite and Acreage basic kits which we believe will provide you with years of trouble free and enjoyable
service for just about any lawn and gardening task you may encounter.
Newsletter Specials exclusively from PremiumKnives.com
Cold Steel Gardeners 20 1/2 inch Mini-Shovel is modeled
after the original Soviet Spetsnaz shovel. The Cold Steel Gardeners 20 inch Mini-Shovel will become one of
your favorite gardening and transplanting tools for those jobs that a full size shovel is just too big.
Featured a broad flat blade and three sharp edges for maximum versatility for weeding.
Spyderco's most popular knife has seen a facelift! Still
anything but delicate, the Delica is now a completely ambidextrous knife with the potential for tip-up,
tip-down and right or left pocket carry. The 3 inch blade lacks pretention and is the right length for just
about any cutting task.
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