Written by Alan Hickman
I could never figure out how to define seas, lakes and ponds. Seas are supposed to be larger than lakes but the Salton Sea, in California, is much smaller than Canada’s Great Bear Lake, and, when I was a kid, nearby Fleet Pond was larger than the neighbouring Hawley Lake.
Similarly, the distinction between tools, gadgets and gimmicks is confusingly imprecise. According to my dictionary, a gimmick is: ‘a mechanical device used to cheat or deceive’; a gadget: ‘a usually small and often novel mechanical or electronic device or contrivance’ and, a tool is: ‘an instrument used by a handicraftsman or labourer in his work’. But where to draw the lines? One person’s gadget is someone else’s tool and everyone has bought at least one gadget that turned out to be just another gimmick.
While I’m sure that the proprietors of Lee Valley Tools would strenuously deny that there is even one gimmick in their inventory, every year, when I thumb through the new edition of their Gardening Tools catalogue, I do a mental classification page by page. (No catalogue? See www.leevalley.com or call (416) 746-0850)
For the purposes of classification I use a rather more relaxed set of definitions. A tool is something a gardener uses often and really cannot do without. A gadget is something that is used less frequently but which does some special task really well; a gadget often elicits a response like "Why didn’t I think of that?" As for gimmicks, they’re all those things which look like they’re useful but either don’t work at all or they set out to cure some non-existent problem and are more trouble than they’re worth. For whatever reason, gimmicks are the things that end up in the back of a drawer, never to see the light of day until the next garage sale.
In the 2007 Lee Valley catalogue, the one item which every gardener should have is on page 11, the stainless steel border fork with ash handle for $35.50. This is a strong, light and versatile tool which will last for several lifetimes. The entire planting area at the Brampton Fairgrounds has been maintained, and mostly created, using these forks and more than half of last year’s Peel Teaching Garden students bought one. This particular fork is now so common in the gardens that everyone has their name or initials carved or painted inside the handle. If you can have only one good gardening tool this should be it.
While a good quality fork is indispensable, even a cheap spade and shovel will serve well enough in the garden - at least for a few years. However, regardless of quality, what every spade and shovel does need is to be kept sharp and, on page 46, there is the tool to do that. The one-piece ‘axe’ file, $8.50, is a must-have for safely maintaining the keenness of all manner of cutting and scraping tools.
Secateurs - pruners to the less hoity-toity - are tools where price and quality are tightly connected and where buying the most expensive is a forgivable indulgence. On page 154 of the catalogue is a full line of imported Swiss Felco pruners. Thanks largely to the rise in the value of the Canadian dollar, the cost of Felco tools has gone down in recent years and the same model which cost me $102.00 in 2003 is now listed at $56.00. The advice is simple: select right hand or left hand, pay the price, and always, always, always, get a holster to put the tool into. With the holster welded to your hip, your investment will always be at hand to prune and trim and snip and it won’t end up lying forgotten in the grass somewhere or buried in the compost heap.
On the catalogue’s first page of inventory is an item which might qualify for a Gardening Gadget of the Year award. Plants are mostly labeled as suitable for full or partial sun or full or partial shade, but what exactly qualifies as which? Most people, me included, are really quite bad at estimating light quality and quantity at any given point in a garden.
The SunCalc is a neat little device that pokes into the ground beside an ailing plant or shrub and totals up the actual amount of light energy available over a twelve hour period. The result is displayed as a plant sunlight category. For instance, a location accumulating between 1.5 and 4 hours of high intensity sun would rate as Partial Shade.
At $34.50 the SunCalc is not cheap but, as inadequate light is a leading cause of plant failure, it need only save one tree or a shrub to pay for itself.
At the end of the catalogue, in the ‘Late Additions’ section, is another item which looks expensive until you consider the alternatives. $74.50 will buy you a set of four steel brackets and the hardware with which even the least handy should be able to build an optimally sized compost box.
Seventy-four bucks - plus 20, four foot long, planks - might seem like a lot to make a box for poop but, in the configuration suggested, the container will hold 8 - 10 times as much and take up less space than the very inadequate plastic things commonly sold as composters. The capacity can be further increased by raising the structure up on blocks or by simply digging a hole underneath it. It is surprising how much material can be digested and turned into garden soil when the compost box is properly sized.
One item that defies classification is not really a gimmick because it does tell the time and the temperature and the humidity; but who really needs to be synchronized to the U.S. Atomic Clock in Boulder, Colorado, for seventy nine dollars and fifty cents? (As chance would have it, a month or so ago, I bought a perfectly good wall clock - complete with thermo- and hygro-meters - in a grocery store for $1.87. I didn’t need it, but for $1.87 I took it anyway!) On the other hand, there is something quite intriguing about a radio controlled clock, so if someone wants to buy me a present, I’m sure item KD305 would look just dandy on the wall in my newly renovated study.
Answer Feb 22???d. loose so the tree can sway in the wind
???A 5' circle of petunias planted 1' apart will require:
a 15 plants
b 30 plants
c 5 plants
Day -6 sunny Winds 40 to 60km/h P.O.P.0%
Night -14 clear Winds 30km/h P.O.P.0%
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