Guest post by Sarah Gerhardt

In part 1 of this series, I wrote about the hand tools that travel with me from garden to garden across Edinburgh. As a professional gardener working in private urban gardens, I rely on tools that are efficient and durable.

If you didn’t read the first installment: I rarely use power tools and carry almost everything I need on my bike. Limited parking in the city makes this a practical necessity, but it’s also a conscious choice. Gardening by bike sharpens your judgment. Every tool has to justify the space it takes up and the weight it adds.

This second part focuses on groundwork and digging. I’ll be looking at the tools I use when soil needs turning, roots need removing, hard surfaces need persuading, or clippings need transferring. 

As before, this isn’t a list of the “best” tools in any universal sense. Tools are deeply personal. What works depends on your body, your working conditions, the type of gardens you care for, and how you transport and maintain your equipment. I am fairly strong but relatively short, with small hands. Weight, balance, and grip size matter to me enormously. A tool can be beautifully made, but if it causes fatigue after half an hour, it simply won’t earn its place in my kit.

The tools below are some of the ones that have proved themselves over time. They are not perfect but trusted.

Patio knife: Simple and Surprisingly Versatile

I spend a lot of time maintaining paths and patios where weeds inevitably find their way into cracks.

When you don’t use pesticides, regular mechanical removal is key. My patio knife (also called a paving knife, patio weeder or scraper) is one of my most frequently used tools.

Patio knives are small hand tools that consist of a handle and an L-shaped steel blade, which is usually sharpened on one side. The implement is designed to reach into narrow crevices between paving stones to remove the plants that have crept in there. It works well for levering out taproots without damaging surrounding surfaces. It’s also very effective at removing moss from the tops of paving stones.

Unconventionally, I also use my patio knife for planting small plants and making seed drills. More often than not, by the time I’ve found my trowel at the bottom of my bag, I’ve already made an adequate hole with the knife. Since getting one, my small fork and trowel spend most of their time waiting in reserve.

I own two patio knives: a no-name plastic-handled version with a shorter L-hook  (which I regularly misplace and rediscover), and a wooden-handled Kent & Stowe model with a longer blade that feels more robust. Both work well. Patio knives are inexpensive, lightweight, and mine are in daily use. They are easily among the most essential tools I carry.

Border Spade: Compact and Powerful

Spades are incredibly personal tools. Every gardener seems to have a favourite, and comfort matters as much as strength.

Because I carry my tools by bike and often dig for extended periods, I favour a border spade. Smaller and lighter than a traditional digging spade, it has a narrower blade with a sharp edge, making it ideal for confined spaces such as flower borders. It allows for precise digging with less risk of damaging neighbouring plants.

The narrow blade cuts cleanly through root balls when dividing perennials and works well for edging in place of a separate edging tool. When turning over soil, I may need a few more spadefuls than with a larger digging spade, but I find it far less strenuous on my body.

Mine is a stainless steel Spears & Jackson border spade with an ash shaft and a wishbone handle. I prefer the wishbone style to a T-handle because it offers a more secure grip. My border spade weighs around 1.5 kg, which makes it light enough to fit into my pannier. It is part of my standard kit. 

A border spade does have limits. Like any spade, it isn’t suited to shovelling – that’s a job for a shovel. Accepting what a tool isn’t designed to do is just as important as appreciating what it does well.

Mattock: The Tool of Last Resort

When faced with stubborn roots, compacted soil, or small stumps, my spade will eventually get there – but slowly. That’s when the mattock comes out.

A mattock resembles a heavy-duty cousin of a pickaxe. It has a relatively long, thick handle and a forged steel head. In a pick mattock, one side features a horizontal adze blade for chopping and trenching, while the other side has a pointed pick for breaking hard or stony ground. A cutter mattock replaces the pick with a vertical blade better suited to cutting roots.

The brilliance of the mattock lies in leverage and weight. The long handle allows you to generate force efficiently using technique rather than brute strength. When used with controlled swings below waist height and with awareness of your surroundings, it’s surprisingly safe and remarkably effective.

The head stays in place through a simple mechanical principle: the handle widens towards the top, so each swing drives the head tighter onto it. To remove the head, you invert the tool and tap the end of the handle on the ground to loosen it.

My mattock is a pick mattock by Carters with a hickory handle and weighs around 3 kg. I chose wood over fibreglass because wood absorbs shock better and tends to fail more predictably if damaged. It is heavier, but for a tool like this, durability and safety matter more than weight. Wood is also renewable, which aligns better with my environmental values, though it is longevity that ultimately determines sustainability.

If I were buying again, I might opt for a cutter mattock, as I most often use mine for cutting through roots.

And yes, I sometimes carry it in my panniers. When I do, the border spade stays at home.

Tarpaulin: Smart Transport and Protection

A tarp may not be a classic gardening tool in the traditional sense, but in my daily professional practice, it is one of the most versatile pieces of kit I own. I carry a small tarp (1.5 m x 1.5 m) and sometimes a larger one (2m x 3m). A tarpaulin has countless uses, both in and outside gardening: a ground sheet for a tent, a sandbox cover, or an emergency rain shelter. It can even make a picnic blanket in a pinch.

In the garden, tarps make weeding far more efficient. Instead of aiming precisely for a small bag or wheelbarrow, I can simply toss weeds onto a wide surface. When full, the tarp can be dragged to the compost bay, folded over, and emptied. The surface beneath stays relatively clean.

For smaller quantities, I fold the tarp into a funnel and pour weeds into a brown bin or bag. It’s significantly faster than transferring material bit by bit while working.

Tarps are also invaluable for several other purposes. I use mine to move soil, mulch or cuttings. When I clip a shrub or hedge, it catches the clippings, making tidying up much faster and neater. If I’m tending to a border and I’m worried about dirtying or damaging the lawn, I protect it with the tarp. If there is sudden rain, I can throw it over my tools for cover. 

Tarps are not perfect. Dragging a heavily loaded tarp across uneven ground is no fun, and material can spill easily. Emptying a tarp neatly into a bag takes practice. The main enemy of my tarps are the infamous sudden gusts of wind we get there in Edinburgh. However, I often weigh mine down with stones or tools and carry on regardless.

Conclusion

Proper ground preparation is a key factor in how well plants establish and thrive, which makes several of the tools in this post truly foundational. Each one earns its place through function, reliability, and how well it works with my body and working style. Gardening by bike has forced me to think carefully about what I truly need. Over time, that constraint has become a strength. 

If there is a common thread running through these tools, it is this: good gardening rests on knowledge and technique first, then on having the right tool for the job. Sometimes that means using a traditional tool well; sometimes it means adapting a tool creatively if that does the job effectively. And occasionally, it means looking beyond classic gardening equipment altogether. A tarpaulin, for example, can be just as essential as a spade if it solves the practical problem in front of you. 

In part 3 of this series, I’ll turn to some of the adaptable, space-saving tools I rely on, including interchangeable systems that allow me to work efficiently across different gardens while carrying as little as possible. 

About the author: Sarah Gerhardt is a gardener, linguist and punk musician based in Edinburgh. She was head gardener at the Dean Gardens, Edinburgh for 9 years and runs her own gardening business Gerhardt’s Garden Service. Find out more via her Linktree: https://linktr.ee/gerhardtsgardenservice