Day 69: the tale of the bent spade

Daily details from the garden to bring you inspiration throughout the year

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It’s been some years since I broke a spade – or a fork for that matter. (We’ll draw a veil over the vintage car-boot fair shovel whose handle snapped in protest after several winters and many tonnes of manure; that, I’ll always argue, was purely down to wear and tear.) Time was when I’d use the things in the most inappropriate fashion, wedging them in under mature shrubs with poorly loosened rootballs and cursing them when my ill-advised levering shenanigans snapped the handles in two – I’ve since learned to use mattocks and picks and pry-bars for this kind of malarkey. But the ghost of my faithful old Bulldog spade with its indestructible metal shaft lurks in the beds still, as a cautionary tale – a friend who, in spite of the abuse to which he was subjected, chose to bend, rather than break. We still make the odd hole together, for old time’s sake, and I treat his successors with greater respect.


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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, blogger, podcaster, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking the image above.

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