I was once called up to volunteer at our kid’s school’s Saturday work bee. “Bring a shovel.” was the suggestion. I brought mine and all the guys just stared. They had never seen that shiny a shovel before. And it wasn’t made of stainless steel either.
This isn’t that shovel. It died. This was my number two shovel that graduated to number one when the first one died of metal fatigue. Actually, I owned this one before the other one, it just went to second status later in life. And now it’s first again…..confused yet? The other one was shinier.
You can see by its scars and welds that like me it has had a full life. The bubble etched marks are from the welding of my Lovely Wife’s Brother when I broke the shank off about 40 years ago. The fine weld in mid blade is from a skilled friend who remedied my concern over a crack that was appearing three years ago.
The shininess comes from always rinsing and wiping the blade immediately after use. The need for shininess / smoothness is so the soil slides off even if it is damp. Nothing sticks better than dirt to a rusty shovel. So don’t let it get rusty. And don’t leave it outside. In our wet climate, weather also eats a wooden handle in a few years.
The best way to keep your number one shovel in peak condition (besides washing and storing inside) is to have a number two shovel. My number two is owned by my Lovely Wife. And it’s heavier and stronger than my number one. My number one is light and used for moving soil around, turning over beds, trimming grass edges on beds and shaking out weeds and sod chunks.
The number two is for going where no shovel has gone before --- digging virgin beds or digging out stumps. Roots and rocks are what kill a shovel and a heavier one is best for those. Like these two brand new beds that the chickens were in first and now I’ve discovered how far the dead cherry tree’s roots really went.
I picked up the blade of the number two from a fellow who had left it outside (as most people do) and the handle quickly aged and broke. It had one of those short little ‘D’ handles that work really well if you’re four feet tall (Munchkins in Oz). I had a nice new long handle waiting for it and bought a couple of rivets for it and installed it myself.
When shopping for a shovel, make sure the grain of the wooden handle is perpendicular to the blade. That goes for axes, hatchets, hoes, rakes, hammers, canoe paddles, baseball bats, ,…. pretty much everything. The force has to go with the grain. If your shovel handle’s grain is parallel with the blade you’ll break it with one good pull back against a hidden rock or root.
Also, if shopping, don’t buy a shovel that is embossed with a name brand sticking out of the metal (dirt sticks to it) and never get a shovel with a ‘hammered’ finish (dirt again). As for those composite handles – I don’t’ really know how they stand up. They’re possibly heavier and definitely thicker to handle. I prefer a more slender handle that I can get my fingers around, that also has a taper that I can sense where the end is without looking and so can maneuver it more easily.
My son TOG once bought a stainless-steel shovel. He didn’t always have time to wash his shovel to keep it clean and rust free smooth. Alas, that stainless one was curved from side to side like a normal shovel, but it also was slightly curved from front to back as well. Every time he pushed it in it wanted to curve itself out. Very frustrating. He did eventually find a use for it but it wasn’t for digging or trimming soil along the paths.
Shovels vary in weight and a heavy, dirty shovel will build your muscles. You’re constantly trying to toss the same soil that sticks to the shovel. My number one shovel is one pound lighter than my number two. Sharpening my spade is a rare thing for me since it already slides through so well. But if I must, I bevel / sharpen the underside of the blade with a file.
The easiest way to get your new shovel shiny and smooth is to lend it to a young labourer who will be shoveling gravel at a work site for the next week.
Once we were sitting in a small park in Sidney, on Vancouver Island eating our lunch and an office ‘kid’ came out with a short-handled spade and started attacking the weeds near the office’s sidewalk. I guess the boss told him to look after the verge. He was all bent over and swinging wildly in a circular motion, like a windmill and smashing the blade into the soil with his arms and hands, bam, bam, bam, bam. He was totally exhausted in two minutes. Obviously, he’d never used a shovel before. Perhaps he was imitating a rototiller?
The goal is to use your feet as much as possible. Whether you jump on the blade or stomp on it or gently stand on it is up to you and the blade but you only use your arms for pulling back on the handle or moving the soil. I prefer work boots for that but when my Lovely Wife occasionally uses her shovel in her flower beds she tends to wear her flip flops. Maybe they’re easier to clean?
Happy Gardening.
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