Gardening Knife / Tool of choice

N

nevertoomany

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A strange, but sincere, question: We have some small, ornamental gardens with mulch covering landscape fabric. While I have a fair-sized collection of knives representing most types, I hate to use a good knife to cut the fabric (and into dirt) when planting. Suggestions?? Anybody have experience with a particular steel that doesn't dull quickly when in contact with dirt?
 
I used a Cobalt folding utility knife from your hardware store. Worked well and I just changed the blades out when dull. I'm not sure of a steel that will put up w/ dirt for any length of time. The razor blades cut the fabric well and held up fairly well, and I didn't worry about ruining the blades.
 
Like tarmix, I use a utility knife with replaceable single edge razor blades (retractable blade). I picked it up at the local hardware for $1.49. The blade usually extends far enough to cut the fabric/plastic/weed barrier without going too far into the dirt. Its bright orange so so its easily seen if dropped.

Does a pretty good job of trimming the light stuff too.
 
I like hawkbills for that kind of work (especially good for cutting weed cloth). If you don't want to use a Spyderco or something of that quality get a pruning knife from Opinel or Victorinox (or others I'm sure). Same idea, but a lot cheaper.

Jack
 
Lee Valley has a Root Knife that my wife and I use when we doing gardening.

http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=1&p=44046&cat=2,42578,40769

This is sort of a hawkbill with serrations and at $7.95 CDN gets the job done. Haven't tried it on the gardening fabric, though.

Other than that, for me, it can also be anything from one of my test blades (I have an 01 hunter that the grind was a bit thick, but it digs good:) ), to either of my Buck Diamondbacks, to my Buck/Strider 887SBT. My Gerber Gator and EZ-Out were used before that. In other words, nothing that is going to break the bank if it tags rocks, sand, etc. and yet easy to sharpen later.

Hope this helps - gord
 
Hey there, when I was working doing landscaping I used to use my buck 110 all the time especially with landscape fabric. It took a good edge, held it relatively well, and sharpened easy, not to mention the price is right. Good luck to you.

-Lindey
 
My wife has used an old Nogales clip point Cold Steel knife in the garden for years. Its fully serrated and she has even left it out and it doesn't seem to be bothered by it. The curve of the blade works for her she says.

She also uses a root rake like those seen in Bonsai tree web sites and stores. I've made those out of titanium and they work great. Its just something very simple from scrap metal really with a couple of bends in it. Many people take a large kitchen fork and make the bend in the fork half way up the tigns and another in the opposite direction on the handle end for the shovel. I would imagine it would be very simple to put an edge on one side of it also of you wanted to make it triple duty but I wouldn't make it super sharp.

Here is one I made for my wife.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=57244&d=1151097682

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=57245&d=1151097693

STR
 
sak garndening series wharncliffe blade single blade slipjoint. Strong backspring very sharp, lovely little knife.
 
Cliff beat me to it. I use an Eriksson #22 from ragnar. Perfect size for digging out weeds, dandelions, etc. Very easy to resharpen on a coarse stone.
 
Folks, really appreciate your suggestions (and am going to try at least 3 of them). For some reason, my reaction to threads about knives and cardboard is always "Haven't you heard of utility knives?!?" and then I forgot about them. May even try a linoleum / carpet knife but I'll probably have to sharpen between cuts!
 
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