A Few New Items For You

Towards the end of 2012, we started selling SeedSpoons and found that customers seemed to like them, so planned to order some more from Canada.  Then, out of the blue, we received an email which simply said "This notice is being sent to you as a retailer of Seedspoons.  Seedspoon production will cease on December 31, 2012 after 13 successful years.  All current stock has been depleted and no more orders will be accepted."

We still had some stock left, but meanwhile did some thinking.  Could we produce something similar?  A little investigating and experimenting, and 'OneSeeders' were born!

As well as offering 6 spoon sizes instead of only 4, we have taken the opportunity to colour-code them.

We don't pretend that they are a complete answer to sowing small seeds, but hopefully they may be some help!

Glaser Tools in Switzerland have always listed a 'Ladies' Cultivator' but we had never been able to find a picture of one.  When we asked about it, they said "We call it a tool for grandma to cultivate the soil of the flowerpots" and kindly offered to send us a sample.

Well, it arrived in mid-March with our next order, and very soon Val started using it to tackle weeds in tight spots like our rockery - it proved to be very much up to the task, so we decided to order some more and now sell them under the name of 'Crevice Cultivator' - 'Ladies' Cultivator' sounded a bit sexist!

We 'inherited' a Glaser 20-tooth aluminium rake when we took over some surplus stock, and offered it at a special price via this blog in December 2012.  The happy customer who bought it was so enthusiastic that we decided to buy a small stock of this rake and its smaller (and cheaper!) cousin with 18 teeth.  They are both very light and strong, but the unusual feature is that the angle of the tines can be easily adjusted by loosening just 2 bolts.  Useful for users of different heights, or for specific tasks.

We are following up another clever Eliot Coleman idea using these rakes.  He fits short lengths of hard plastic tube over selected tines and then draws the rake through well-tilled soil to mark out rows - and even across those lines to mark out a planting grid!

Watch this space and the Hand Tools page of our website, as they should be here soon.