Good tools are a must for the allotment and the vegetable garden at home
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
If you are growing food for whatever reason for you and your family at an allotment or a vegetable garden at home good quality tools that will stand up to the rigors of work are a must.
There is a lot of cheap tools about nowadays that look good with the price tag but in the long run they are nothing but a waste of time – in the main. I say “in the main” because you will always find an exception here or there but... in general you get what you pay for. Good tools can be, as suggested, expensive but, in the main, they are well worth the investment as they will last for generations.
When looking for good tools the first thing is to look at the materials and also the name. You can generally assume that those made by Bulldog Rollins, or Spear & Jackson, or Wilkinson Sword, are good quality and they do come with a guarantee – often a lifetime one.
Aside from the above there are also other makers whose products look extremely well made, whether they be Dewit in the Netherlands or this or that maker in the USA.
I do hope to be able to obtain samples of some of the tools of the not so well known makers for review and to let the reader know as to how those tools perform and how they handle.
The truth is that, as said before, in generally, good tools for the allotment and the vegetable garden/smallholding a an investment that will hold its value for more than one generation often.
In addition to boughten tools and such there are many instances where you can and will make your own that may be better than any that you can buy. Many tools have, indeed, started out life in that way. And you can, very often, recycle this or that thing into such a new tool.
A good book or two on old tools and on making your own gardening tools and equipment also is a good investment. In the same way as books on how to as regards to gardening is a good investment, and, in a way, books are tools too in this scenario. It is, however, tools of another kind that we are talking about here really.
Eliot Coleman basically said in his writing that if you cannot find the right tool that you want you should make your own and at times that is just the way to go.
Only recently, being also a professional groundsman in a municipal park, I made my own copy, sort of, of the Cobrahead Long Handle Tool, despite the fact that I have got one of them at home – and which I have reviewed.
The local council was not about to invest, I am afraid to say, despite the fact that the Cobrahed tool is brilliant tool, in those for the grounds staff of their parks and open spaces so I just made my own from an old issued drag hoe. It works; though in no way as good as the Cobrahead proper, but... as said, it works.
There are also other times when adapting a tool to suit you, such as changing a builder's trowel into a plant transplanting one, as described by Eliot Coleman in “The Winter Harvest Handbook” published by Chelsea Green Publishing. Often such adaption is the only way and at times leads to more that just that one tool or that one occasion.
There are, however, general good tools out there that can be bought and that fit the bill – in more than one way – and in most cases it is a a matter of “you get what you pay for” as far as quality is concerned.
One of the good manufacturers who gives good value for money – the tools don't cost the earth – is Bulldog Rollins and they have a variety of ranges or a variety of pockets. Most of the tools are still British made at their forges at Wiggan.
Then there are also a number of other makers such as Spear & Jackson and Wilkinson Sword in Britain, and many of their tools too are made in the country.
For serious gardening I would suggest that one avoids the cheap Chinese made tools as most of them just do not stand up to the rigors of allotment gardening and similar such work.
Good quality tools do not come cheap – in general – but in the main they will last for a long time if cared for.
© 2009
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Quality tools for the allotment gardener
