The world's best garden tools

I love my job. I get to work with people all over the country, and help them develop new product and service ideas based upon the unmet needs of consumers that we study. One of the most rewarding parts of my job however, is when we see ideas that we've helped to generate, come to life.

This last weekend I decided to put a garden in my back yard. Since this would be my first garden since my youth, I decided to start "small", a mere 30' wide by 120' long. Okay, it didn't seem that big until I started to plant the thing. Having spent all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon in the thing, I have now planted about 1/3 of what I've bought to go into it. My hands are raw, my back is sore, and I'm somewhat sunburned... but as they say, it's a good kind of pain.

I decided to do this (in part) because of a project we did for Ames True Temper a year ago dealing with Gardening Enthusiasts. We spent hours watching people as they landscaped their yards and planted food for their families. We worked with Master Gardeners to discover the unmet needs that they had with their existing tools. Ultimately, we came up with a new line of tools, focused on these experts. The tools are now on the market, Ames sent me a set a few weeks ago, so... I had to start a garden.

It's one thing to watch other people use products, but its much cooler to use good products yourself. The garden rake they launched has a circular "steering wheel" handle that surrounds the shaft. It is a great feature for really pulling. As intuitive as this is, it makes me wonder why no one has done it before.

The material on these handles is a form of plastic, with a softer rubber molded in where your hands go. In spite of the hot days, these things felt good, with no slippage or unwanted twisting.

When we started this project with Ames, I was skeptical that anyone could really make a "better shovel" (or any other garden tool for that matter). After all, after the lever, it's probably the oldest tool known to man. But I'll be darned if we (collectively) didn't pull it off.

Hopefully I'll feel as good about these tools after I get the remaining 2/3 of the garden planted. If only they could do something about the aching joints and the sunburn...