How to choose the right spade + Plant "stealing" etiquette

Hey gardening friends. So I was recently at my mom's garden stealing some plants and when I say stealing of course I mean with her permission but I was digging around in her borders and I thought that this would be a really good time to talk about spades because as you might know I have some strong opinions about them. So I decided to use these plants that I had dug out of my mom's garden to do a little bit of a spade experiment to not experiment but to be able to show you how different spades might be better for your needs. But first I want to start with why a spade instead of a shovel. So this is what I used for probably at least 10 years of gardening if not more. A shovel like this in fact possibly this same shovel. This is your you know hardware store big box special. It's got a it's got a fiberglass handle and some sort of reinforcement here I don't know. This thing is absolutely great for moving dirt from one place to another. So if you have a pile of dirt and you need to put it into a wheelbarrow this is your man right here. This is not your man for gardening. So if you've been following me for any amount of time you know that this baby right here is like my right hand. You know that I love this spade. So this is the border spade with a short handle and this is actually the lux handle and the lux handle kind of goes in in the middle here because that's where you grab it. So if you have smaller hands it's a little bit easier to wrap your hand around around the handle. So that's what the lux handle is about. As you can tell this is much flatter and much smaller than this shovel that I used to use. Let's compare the two the two heads here. So why do I prefer this? Well let me count the ways that this is better. One it's lighter. Two ergonomically this is so much better than that. Okay when I stand them both on their ends you can see that this one's about a foot longer which means that when I'm working digging in a bed like my arm is like way up here. This is this this is no good. When I'm working using this one my arm is at where it's going to have the most um what would we say best leverage the best leverage here. Also by the way I'm a big fan of the t handle but these these spades come with different kinds of handles so if you like something else they probably have it. But I like this t handle quite a lot. Number two if you've ever dug a hole with shovel you know that basically what you do is you dig almost like a v-shaped bowl. Because of the way this is shaped when you dig you're always digging like this and then prying it up. So what you end up with is a hole that's not really great for a plant because it's got very shallow sides that come in like this and then a bottom that's probably too deep. This will give you relatively straight sided holes. And this is also great because when you think about when you're digging a hole you're digging a hole you're basically just like leveraging soil out of the hole and then kind of scooping it to the side right. So you don't need to pick it up and move it somewhere far away. If you were then you maybe are looking at that shovel. But they have a lot of spades and so if you're looking at investing in a spade you might be wondering how you choose the right one for you. Here is another one right here. This is the garden spade. This is the border spade. This is the garden spade. You can see this one has a bigger head. I think it's about half a pound heavier but I will put the stats on the screen for you. Both of these are available in different handle lengths so shorter people can get one. By the way the people who sell these tools are actually completely experts in these things so you should feel free to call those places and ask them and they can help you figure it out. Because I actually did call them and ask them about this tool before I bought it to make sure I was getting the right tool for me. So the main difference here is that this is bigger. It's everything else about this in terms of the shape of the blade, the way it's constructed, all that is the same. Although this one does not have that lux handle this is just a straight handle. Now this one's new to me. You can tell Sneedworks just sent this one to me not too long ago because this is what one you use all the time looks like and this is what the brand new one looks like in terms of handle color. But I do like using this one and I will use this one if I'm digging just a few holes. For me the difference is if I'm going to be working in the garden all day long I'm going to use this one because lighter to me equals longer. Does that make sense? I'm able to dig more with this one without having to worry about fatigue than I am with this one. And you can see that these basically perform in a very similar way when you're digging holes and actually using them in the garden. And that's where this guy comes in. I'm sorry all these tools are dirty because I use all these tools. So apologies I don't think you're supposed to store your tools like this but let's be honest this is what happens. This is the pointed spade. So in terms of size of the head let's just put the big one. I mean it's basically about the same size as this one except this obviously has the point at the end. Now I've been using this one quite a bit because I'm intrigued by the point of it. Get it? But where this one clearly shines at least in in my book is in harder soils or thicker clay soils where you need a little bit extra oomph. Now all of these are super sharp tools and by the way I've said this before and I'll say it again don't buy tools that you can't sharpen. All of these have beautiful sharp edges on them and you can maintain that edge and always have a sharp spade. And I promise you you won't believe the if you have been using a spade that hasn't been sharpened you won't believe the difference when you sharpen your spade. It's like it's just like when you use your hand pruners and when your hand pruners are sharp versus not sharp. It's like a night and day difference. Same goes for big tools like this. But I would say if you're working through some hard soil you know this point can kind of help you start a hole. I also think that especially like American gardeners we might be more familiar with a spade that has a point on it. Like I feel like this is a little bit more natural than a square top spade. But my experience with this has been that in my garden where I have really loose soil this actually to me feels like it moves less material than the square top ones do. So these three tools all serve the same purpose. So in this case you pick the one that you feel best suits your circumstance. And I think that comes down to a few factors. So the first factor is really about the gardener themselves. How tall are you? What kind of gardening do you like to do? How strong are you? I think these things are all factors that will help you decide whether something smaller or bigger is right for you. If you are digging in hard soil, soil that's tough to work in, then you want I would say you'd go with the pointed one. If you just like feel more comfortable with a pointed one go with that. But if you have looser soil where you don't necessarily need that or you don't have a strong preference with the point then I really like these. And of course I've told you this is this is my ride or die right here. I just feel like I can do absolutely anything with this. But like I said this one does move a lot of of material. And I would say it's I would say it's noticeable. I would say I can dig a hole probably faster with this than I can with this. But it's like seconds. It's we're not talking minutes we're talking seconds here. Which is why I will use this when it's just a few holes. But if I'm carrying a tool around the garden I really appreciate the lightweight and all the things I can do with this. Now all of these tools can be used for obviously digging a hole, digging up plants, dividing plants. They're definitely as long as you keep these sharp you can definitely put a big slice down the middle of a plant. But now I want to show you another spade. Now this is a completely different animal. This is not a substitute for any of these three. But having used it just a little bit I actually can't imagine gardening without it. That's like like like this wins the award for tool you didn't know you needed but you definitely need. And it is this. This is the transplanting spade. And this thing is amazing. So I used this over at my mom's house because I was digging in her epimediums. And before I tell you more about this I want to just talk briefly about etiquette in getting plants from another person's garden. So the first rule of etiquette as far as I'm concerned when it comes to getting plants from another garden is when someone says you can have a plant the first question you should ask is would you like me to come dig it up. Now a lot of gardeners don't want you to do that. They don't want other people digging in their gardens. But I think it's always proper to ask and offer because that's really the least you can do if you're getting a plant from someone else's garden. And then if they say sure come on over and dig out what you need or whatever the circumstance is as it was when I went to my mom's house the first question you ask is where would you like me to dig. Because for instance at my mom's house I was dealing with these enormous epimediums and I was just digging out chunks of them. And she told me specifically she would like me to like there was a fern we were trying to save that was getting crowded out by the epimedium. So first we did she wanted me to take the epimediums from around the fern. And in fact she wanted me to dig up the fern so that we could get that out of the ground dig up the epimediums clear a really nice hole for that fern and then replant it which is what I did. The next thing is that when you're digging remove as much soil as you can from whatever you're digging up. Do not take someone else's soil. Soil is a precious resource. That person has probably worked very hard in that soil and you don't want to leave a big hole in the garden. In fact I have actually brought bags of topsoil to people's gardens before to offer to replace soil because no matter what you pull out there's usually going to be a hole. And offer to fill in a hole for them with you know like bag topsoil or something. Sometimes they want that sometimes they don't. But again I feel like it's nice to offer these things. And then the last thing is leave the garden looking better than it was before you left. Don't leave I mean it's hard to work around especially like when I was in those epimediums. It's hard not to stomp on stuff and have some plants get trampled and everybody understands that. But when I was finished I went through and I made sure to sort of fluff everything up. I made sure to water everything back in around the edges. I made sure to check in and say have I you know is this can I keep going? Did I take too much? Just think about what it would be like if you had someone digging in your garden and then do all those things if you're in someone else's garden. Here's the thing gardening friends who will allow you to take plants from their garden are the best. And you want to make sure that you are welcome back in their garden to dig things in the future. Okay so that is Aaron's rules Aaron's etiquette rules for taking plants from another person's garden. Now this spade let's talk about this. First of all it's narrow which means it's very easy to get in the soil. So when I was cutting around those epimediums instead of having a wider blade to deal with I was able to to like make very tight corners with it which was very good. Second of all most of all look at this V right here. Do you see how sharp this is? Do not wear flip-flops when you're cutting with this one. I feel like this could take your toe. Cuts in there so well and what's great is that I also dug out a sanguisorba noise there that was that had the biggest roots I've ever seen and I was able to just jam it underneath there and slice all those roots. So it's so good for that and then of course if you need to divide something after you dig it up this is going to slice that baby so quickly and so well. Also the nice thing about this is all of these spades this is a really important thing that you should not miss. All of these spades have steps. I'll show you they all they all are a little bit different but they all have steps right here and this is a place to put your foot so that you can stomp on it. Very important do not buy a spade without steps because it will make your foot absolutely kill and of course this one needs wider ones because there's not enough room to actually stick your foot on this otherwise. So these really sturdy steps that stick out crucial crucial part of a good spade. So who is this tool for? This tool is for anybody who has a mature enough garden where you are doing transplanting. It's really the main thing it's good for. You obviously aren't going to be digging holes with this in fact when I was digging holes I tried to dig a hole with this it it doesn't work you need a regular spade for that. But if you have a garden that is mature enough that you are going to be doing transplanting and that's something you like to do and you see yourself doing this is a this is a game changer. Even if you only use this a few times a year personally I feel like this is a tool worth having. So if you are shopping for a spade I hope this helps you think about some of the things you should probably take into consideration when making sure that you get the right one. My big message to you is that bigger is not better. In fact I believe bigger is worse. You have to find a tool that works right for the kind of gardening you do and you your body. Now as for me in case you're wondering about favorites here although it's probably already clear I mean listen while I love the garden spade and I find it very useful if if the garage shed is burning down I'm grabbing this border spade and I think I'm grabbing the transplanting spade too because game changer right here total game changer.