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By Perry Droast
The Backyard Gardener
Every gardener has their favorite tools. Some are used daily or at least weekly, while others are only used occasionally for more specialized tasks. The garden spade is one of those specialized tools.
While growing up, I sort hated the spade. Specifically, I hated my father’s spade. When my father handed it to me, it only meant one thing. Edge the lawn.
Either edge the outside of the lawn along the dirt edges, or along the driveway and sidewalks. And I didn’t like it one bit.
Once a year…
…starting at the age of 10 and ending when I went away to college, I edged the lawn along the dirt edges in the spring. I had to dig a narrow strip of grass out along the edge of the driveway in the front yard and along the concrete sidewalks in the backyard twice a year. This was necessary because we had Kentucky bluegrass lawns and it spreads and grows out from the edge. Fortunately, Kentucky bluegrass spreads slowly and it’s much less invasive than bermuda grass.
Even though I hated edging the lawn, those early years of child slave labor (hey, I did get fed, clothed, and sheltered along with an allowance) instilled a love of gardening in my very being, and I’m thankful my parents made me do it.
Then I bought a spade
Once I grew up and needed my own yard to look good, one of the first tools I bought was a garden spade. I’ve found several new uses for the spade, none of which includes edging the lawn. In fact, I don’t need to edge the lawn at my house with a spade at all. I use a string trimmer. I’m very thankful to whoever invented the string trimmer.
That said, I now consider my garden spade an old and valuable friend.
Here’s a list of uses I’ve found for the spade…
- Trenching – I’ve dug many a trench for PVC pipe used for garden irrigation and sprinklers with my spade. It’s especially useful for a trench that will have multiple pipe runs.
- Double-digging garden beds – the spade is especially suited for this job as it allows you to actually dig at an angle under the edges of the bed allowing for more root spread along the edges.
- Cutting out blocks of turf – this is usually done when you need to repair broken sprinklers or pipes in the lawn. Or if you need to dig a trench for some electrical conduit through the lawn and you want to reuse the same turf when you’re done.
- Scraping areas flat – generally I only do this when I’m going to lay some concrete for a new sidewalk or before I spread sand and gravel to lay concrete pavers on. Any time you need a thin layer of dirt scraped off an area, try a garden spade.
- Cleaning footings – a spade works great to clean out all the loose dirt from the bottom of trenches used for footings along the edges of driveways and foundations.
- Digging a square hole – any time you need to dig a square hole, maybe a series of holes to pour concrete into to support a deck, or to support a mailbox, or a lamp post in the front yard.
…you may be able to think of even more uses. If you’ve found some other uses for the garden spade, leave a comment below so we can all learn something.
I’ll cover some more garden tools in future articles. If you have any suggestions for tools you’d like to hear more about leave a comment below.