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RE: [GWL]: garden tool retailers

In the U.S., most gardeners buy most of their tools from chain-store 
garden centers or the garden-center parts of major general retail chain 
stores.  This is the way to get the cheapest tools of the most common 
types.  Such tools are usually cheap in all respects.  They are usually 
made out of inadequate amounts of poor-quality materials, and often are 
poorly designed as well.  There is no point to sharpening an $8 shovel 
or spade from the discount house, because the metal is shaped so poorly 
it will take more than $8 worth of time to sharpen and is so inferior it 
won't hold an edge anyway.

For better quality tools of standard types, I go to a locally-owned 
hardware store that has a bench grinder and sharpens all the tools for 
free for the asking before you take them home.  If you can find a 
hardware store or garden center that sharpens the tools, they are likely 
to be selling tools worth sharpening.  Such tools will usually cost 2 to 
4 times as much as the equivalent junk versions in the chains.  Farm 
supply stores and "Feed and Seed" stores usually will carry the better 
brands of tools, also.  Farmers tend not to buy junk that doesn't work 
or doesn't last.  So farm supply stores are a good source of quality 
versions of the more common garden tools.

For the more specialized tools, most American gardeners will need to buy 
mail order.  I believe the best single mail order retail supplier of 
garden tools in the U.S. is Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, in California.  
Peaceful Valley was founded to provide tools and supplies for 
small-scale organic gardeners and farmers.  

Many seed companies carry useful and interesting collections of quality 
specialty tools of the kind that you can buy only mail order.  I 
consider four, in addition to Peaceful Valley, especially noteworthy.  I 
list these 5 companies and their websites below.  You can find out all 
you need from their websites.  I give an address for Fedco, which is a 
cooperative that does not have a website.  Since tools are often 
expensive to ship, when you have a choice of mail order sources, the one 
closest to home is often least expensive.  

I've ordered tools from all these companies, and have always been fully 
pleased with what I got.  Here, in alphabetical order, are my 
recommended five:  

Fedco (Maine) PO Box 520, Waterville, ME 04903-0520
Johnny's Selected Seeds (Maine) wwwjohnnyseeds.com 
Nichols Garden Nursery (Oregon) www.nicholsgardennursery.com
Peaceful Valley Farm Supply (California) www.groworganic.com
Territorial Seed Company (Oregon) www.territorialseed.com

In addition, there are two very interesting mail-order stores that have 
extensive collections of gardening, farming, and traditional "homestead" 
tools.  These two companies supply tools to  Amish farmers, for example, 
whose religion doesn't allow most kinds of electric tools.  Amish people 
buy and use high quality sophisticated hand tools of many kinds.  These 
companies have some tools I've never found elsewhere -- corn husker's 
gloves, for example, and hand-cranked corn shellers.  You can even get 
grain mills appropriate for a home or big enough for an entire 
community, all the gear for your draft horses, a buggy, or a 
wood-burning cookstove. And, of course, all kinds of traditional hand 
tools for everything from gardening to milking your own cows, churning 
your own butter, and making your own cheese.  Here are these two 
companies:

Cumberland General Store (Tennessee)  www.cumberlandgeneral.com
Lehman's (Ohio) www.lehmans.com

Hope this helps.

Carol Deppe
Author of BREED YOUR OWN VEGETABLE VARIETIES:  THE GARDENER'S AND 
FARMER'S GUIDE TO PLANT BREEDING AND SEED SAVING (Chelsea Green, Dec. 
2000)  (See table of contents, excerpts, & reviews at 
www.chelseagreen.com.)  

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