Spear & Jackson Traditional Stainless Steel Border Spade with 712mm Wooden Handle

Product Information

Even if you are strong enough to wield a heavier garden spade with no bother, you still might benefit from a lightweight model if you are going to be doing long digging sessions as it’ll cut down on fatigue. Shaft Materials The mirror polished stainless steel blade measures 23cm long and just 14.5cm wide, the narrow blade making it perfect for its designed purpose. The length of the spade you use can either make your digging far less taxing, or can make it a miserable experience. They’re often lighter than digging spades, and may be easier for petite gardeners to use for prolonged periods. These spades are intended for all of the jobs you might expect to encounter whilst digging in the garden: moving earth, cutting through roots, and turning soil.

Weight it worth buying special attention to because it can be especially hard to bear in mind when shopping online.First, we look at comfort and ease of use in relation to handle and blade materials, explaining the pros and cons of carbon steel, stainless steel, wood, fibreglass and plastic. Heavy-duty yard work can become much easier when you have a good digging spade. Let’s look at the main things to look for in a good digging spade:

Aluminium shafts are light, and strong enough for lighter gardening tasks; however, it’s not as strong a material others and may bend under pressure. Handle MaterialIf you’re installing fence posts our selection of post hole diggers help to create narrow, even holes in the ground and feature non-slip handles for a secure grip. The main materials used for garden spade shafts are wood (commonly ash wood, although hardwood is used sometimes too), steel, and plastic (usually polypropylene). Spades on the other hand have a flatter and sharper blade that makes them perfect for digging straight down into the ground and digging edges around your lawn. Spades usually have a larger ‘step’ on top of the blade so that you can use your foot to help break the surface you are digging into. This long standing expertise ensures that when you buy a Wilkinson Sword garden tool, you can be pretty sure it’s going to be well made and durable, and this garden spade is no exception. One thing I will say though, is that the D-shaped handle was a little small for my liking and people with larger than normal hands might find it uncomfortable to use. Conversely, it would be great for gardeners with smaller mitts.

At 117cm, this is quite a long garden spade and would suit people who are average height to tall. Shorter folks might find it a little too big, although at only 1.75kg it is hardly heavy and certainly won’t be tiring your arms out. Personally, I’m around 5ft 10” and I found that the extra length meant that I didn’t need to stoop as much as I normally do with other garden spades. Carbon steel, on the other hand, has the ability to rust. Whilst it won’t rust immediately, or especially easily, it still has the potential to do so. Therefore, slightly more maintenance and care is required with a carbon-steel blade. The main benefit of carbon steel is that it’s stronger than stainless steel due to its high carbon content. This Wilkinson Sword Digging Spade isn’t just aesthetically pleasing, even though the traditional wooden handle does make it a visually-appealing addition to the shed. The ash-wood components are made from FSC approved timber, which reassures that the wood has been responsibly sourced. The handle and head are both strong enough to complete a lot of challenging work like tree stump removal, moving heavy soil, and shifting gravel. Bulldog have a good reputation for creating heavy-duty tools straight from their forge in Wigan. Their Evergreen Digging Spade is a durable tool with several design features that help make it particularly strong.This garden spade is slightly smaller than our digging spade, making it ideal for digging in confined spades, or for gardeners who prefer to work with a shorter, lighter-weight tool. This spade has been tested to a breaking strain of 90kg; far above and beyond the British standard of 55kg.