Choosing and Maintaining Garden Tools by June Morgan
January is an excellent time to assess the contents of the gardening shed. Whether a beginning gardener starting anew or needing to replace old and worn out hand tools, quality should take first consideration. That, and proper care will add much to the pleasure of gardening.
The collection should have at least two spades, one wide bladed for shoveling dirt and compost and a narrow bladed for digging. Add a heavy-tined fork for digging rough ground and a lighter tined for lifting crops. Two rakes, one for leaves, preferably expandable and a sharp-tined sturdy one for leveling. Smaller hand tools should include trowels, bulb planters, pruners, and a Japanese Hori-Hori knife useful for cutting bags and heavy roots. The latter is serrated on one side and can even take the place of a trowel in some cases. Before grabbing just any tool available at the local big box store, consider the quality of construction. The junction of the blade and the shaft should have at least two rivets. The shaft should be ash or other hardwood and the metal blade should be the best steel affordable, stainless or an alloy, forged, not stamped and thick enough so as not to be easily bent. Handles should be the right length for the height of the user. Like buying a golf club, the “feel” should be right.
This is especially true of pruners as the best ones are both expensive and a lifetime investment. The most popular brand is Felco as they come in both types, anvil and bypass. The bypass blade is sharp and cuts with the blade like scissors whereas the anvil blades work like a knife on a cutting board. They can come in either right or left handed, several sizes and prices, and some models have replaceable anvil blades.
The larger tools are to be hung on the wall of the shed so as not to dull the blades; the smaller go in a bucket or a portable container. The cleaning equipment should include a file or other sharpening tool, towels, Scotch Brite pads, lubricant, and sterilizer solution. The beveled edges of the tool blades are to be sharpened as needed. After each use, the tools should be hosed, dried, and lubricated with a thin coat of boiled linseed oil (a plant based product) not petroleum, and wiped dry. This sets up a barrier which prevents rust. The sterilizers of choice are hydrogen peroxide or alcohol, not bleach. These are used to prevent transferring pathogens from one plant to another especially in pruning and propagation.
If local stores do not carry the tools that meet the standards, try the higher end nurseries and catalogs that offer some imports and detailed descriptions of the construction. Quality garden tools are not cheap, but the good ones that have been cared for can be handed down for generations.