By Will Rowlands
MAY-JUNE 2017 – The Spear Head Spade® was designed by Daniel Mathieu when he was 85. With two artificial knees and two artifical hips, he was finding it increasingly difficult to dig and cultivate his garden.
Fortunately, Mathieu is an inventor and designed a garden shovel that does a better job of penetrating tough New England soils.
He began with a regular shovel and, by gradually removing bits and pieces of the shovel head, engineered a shovel that uses angles and edges to cut through obstacles and penetrate difficult soils with less effort.
As it turned out, many of his friends immediately appreciated the benefits of the new design. Soon, he had a list of people interested in getting one.
Fortunately for us, he convinced his son, Julien, to patent and manufacture the Spear Head Spade.
“I was given a Spear Head Spade to test a few years ago. I immediately brought it to the landscape job from hell where we prepared a very large, difficult rocky slope for planting. It faced the rocks head on and laughed at them. Since then, it is my go-to spade for all my gardening jobs. My landscape crews started asking to ‘borrow’ it, so now they all have their own Spear Head Spades. This is one excellent tool.”
– Nancy DuBrule-Clemente, owner of Natureworks in Northford
This is a Connecticut product made and sold by a Connecticut company. Spear Head Spade is based in Windsor and manufactured in Coventry.
The spear-head design applies your digging force to a smaller area. Put another way, in physics parlance, the shovel applies a larger force per unit area.
This makes it easier to cut through rocky soil, compacted soil, clay and roots. The smaller blade profile also allows it to seek the path of least resistance and work its way around or through obstacles.
The blade is made of high carbon manganese steel and the handle is made of reinforced fiberglass.
It’s also light, making it ideal for tight work and detailed or fine digging such as transplanting highly rooted plants like ornamental grasses, irises and hostas.
For obvious reasons, the Spear Head Spade is appreciated by women and seniors but it’s also used by professionals who want to have the best tool for a specific job.
I even used it on the frozen junk at the end of my driveway this winter (not a recommended use). About the only thing it’s not good for is moving around soil and compost.
The shovel comes in three sizes. The Long is 58 inches long and weighs 4 pounds, the Short is 41 inches long and weighs about 3.5 pounds, and the Mini is 30 inches long and weighs just 2 lbs.
You can buy them online at spearheadspade.com and the website has a list of stores where they’re available.
You know what they say, work smarter not harder.
