Here it is a rainy, kind of nasty day outside; a Sunday and I had hoped to work on my latest yard project: a little rock wall and 6 steps on my woodland path garden. The neighborhood I live in was first built in the 1920’s and the builder used my lot to bury the debris of the several houses he built here. What was considered leftovers in 1920 are what any gardener today would consider treasures. Our town is built on granite, so cobblestones and curbstone of early Richmond roadways were built out of cheap and plentiful granite blocks of all sizes. My supply seems endless, no matter how many are actually buried there. I am limited by the time and effort it takes to excavate and relocate the blocks.

Whatever the task I am working on, transplanting to excavating rocks, I always have one tool with me. I have a box with all of my cool little garden helpers. Most have been gifts and are sentimental as well as practical. But there is one tool I would feel truly handicapped with out. That one indispensable tool to me is the plain old short handled spade. The difference between a spade and a shovel is that the spade is a cutting tool. It is only marginally successful at cleaning loose dirt from a hole. That lowly task is best left to the shovel; which it is very good at that job! No, the spade is a specialist that cleanly cuts the soil more like a knife than a shovel.

I have several spades, and can proudly claim to have broken in the act of gardening, several of the more famous imported brands of very handsome spades. The one I will never wear out began its gardening career long before me. Nothing fancy, just built to last: a circa 1950 True Temper garden spade, available at any self respecting hardware store. With a real Ash handle and good old American made steel. Between the gardener I inherited it from and myself, it has dug and planted just about anything imaginable. And even though it is a rainy day, the spade and I did manage to slip a few Ajuga out of some Mondo Grass and plant it in the new rock garden.
And once again the spade was proven in invaluable garden tool. With a cutting tool I can slip a few plants out of the ground, plant a tree, or dig up a huge rock. Sometimes I do switch to a shovel, but only to clean away loose soil. So the spade can get back to work.