My gardening hand tools are a mixture of old and new. High use items are often replaced, usually cutting implements such as secateurs, loppers and hand saws. The old tools I inherited from my grandparents when their houses were packed up. Think Dutch hoes and scarifiers, crowbars, steel rakes, and shovels of varying type. And in my early teens, my grandmother gave me a spade and fork for my birthday (she was a nurseryman like I became).
With all that in mind, for the first time in my career I had to go and buy a shovel. After 25-years of use, my old spade came to the end of its life today. Who would have thought digging out 26 knee heigh Hebe plants would be so difficult! I was pushing that old spade too hard and it eventually began to banana the head..................there is no coming back from that.
So, off I went to the dreaded "big green warehouse", basically the Aussie version of Home Depot, knowing exactly what I was going to buy. I say
dreaded because of their horrendous business tactics and the fact that 95% of what is sold in those stores is cheap junk from China. So, for them to stock something outside of their usual marketing tagline of
"lowest prices are just the beginning" is extremely rare.
Now technically, this is a post hole shovel, but I like these for gardening because the plunge into earth easier and the longer handle improves leverage. At a previous employer, we had a couple of these Fiskars shovels, of which I used quite a lot. As such, they seem to take the abuse thrown at them from multiple users, backed up by a 25-year warranty. The handle with its 40-degree angle makes it more ergonomic, in turn reducing fatigue. The handle design with its steel construction is primarily why I knew what I was going to buy today.
As for the broken spade, I had an old Cyclone post hole shovel with a broken handle, so I decided to swap the spades good handle onto the Cyclone's good head. I did look at new handles while at the hardware store, but they were complete junk and didn't even have a rounded over top, which would eventually slice into your hand with prolonged use. So, a few wacks with a steel rod to drive out both handles, then a few wacks to seat the good handle onto the good head, some fresh screws and a few grazed knuckles, I once again have a usable spade. That Cyclone spade head would easily be 30+ years old.
