Hand Tools, Seeds, and Supplies
April/May 1998
By John Vivian
A review of this season's garden goods.
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In their home garden catalogs, most large, commercial seedsmen are coming to acknowledge the burgeoning popularity of the natural, organic method among gardeners who are determined to assure their families a safe and healthful food supply. Industry giant Burpee — although a proud relation of Luther Burbank, America's preeminent scientific garden-plant variety developer — offers wildflower seed mixes and several beneficial insects, such as ladybugs, that will consume the aphids on your green peas. They, along with Harris Seeds, Stokes, and others, have long offered organic gardeners the option of buying seed that is untreated, lacking the red or green dyed fungicide coatings intended to protect seed against rot in cool, wet spring soil. But several smaller but growing firms are devoted to supplying native ground-covers and natural pest-deterrents by the score, as well as seed that is not only untreated but grown organically — in natural, compost-enriched soil and without harsh chemical fertilizers, or pest or disease controls. Some specialize in non-hybrid heirloom open-pollinated seed varieties, and all offer a thoughtful selection of tools and equipment for home gardening.
Notable among the organic-garden-friendly seed and equipment houses are Johnny's Selected Seeds, Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, and Seeds of Change. For these firms and all other mail order merchants cited below, full addresses and contact points are given in the source list at the end of the article. Most offer colorful print catalogs that are free by mail with a postcard or phone call; many are developing on-line catalogs for ordering via the Internet.
HAND TOOLS
Every spring, anyone who has used mail order or who subscribes to magazines is deluged with ads for some Madison Avenue marketeer's latest idea for a cute new gardening hand tool. Most claim to eliminate the work by putting a novel twist into the blade or handle of a traditional implement.
Most Garden Maggots and Ho-Ho Hoes are used once or twice, then tossed into the cobwebs at the back of the equipment shed when they prove to be inferior to a conventional design that is the result of ten thousand years of mankind's hard labor in the fields.
Now and again, we do see genuine innovations and worthwhile improvements in design, manufacture, or distribution of established, use-proven tools.
Garden Spades and Forks
It's hard to find good, quality hand-digging tools in most retail outlets. Ames and other major domestic tool manufacturers most surely do produce top-quality hand tools with thick, toughened-steel blades forged with long sockets or full or half-length steel straps on fire-hardened white ash or the new lifetime fiberglass handles. But these professional-quality tools are produced in small quantities, professionally-priced at $75 or so, and distributed mainly to folks in the land scaping and heavy construction trades who use them hard every day to earn a living. Most hardware and mall stores order the manufacturers' lighter, massproduced consumer lines. As a result, most serious gardeners have to shop for superior tools in the quality tools mail order catalogs.
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