I am handicapped, mostly in my feet and ankles, and so I find a hand chopper to be my favorite tool. I can sit on a light stool or on the ground and garden until I am pleasantly tired. Rhino makes a good example: it costs just a LITTLE more but it is worth it: the handle is NOT thin and metal it is wood and a bit fatter, so my hand does not slip like it would in a cheap model. I have used it for years and there is only a few specks of rust on it, and the picture of the elephant is kind of cute, though the picture on the bottom end is starting to wear off (it is in the metal itself so it stayed on longer than a painted one)
Just as valuable as the hand chopper is the woven greenhouse plastic that I use to decrease the weeding that I do. I punch holes in it every 3 feet and every hole will take a tomato plant, or a bell pepper, or 2-3 corn stalks, or whatever. Every hardware store sells weed barrier but weed barrier does an inferior job of things, as it is thin and way too fragile.
Lastly, if it was not my feet and ankles that bothered me I would be going with long-handles tools to spare my back. Handicapped gardeners sometimes use a plastic pipe to plant seeds with and I have tried it: one complaint I had with it is that the seeds can stop on the rough bottom lip where the plastic pipe was cut. AND, then the seed has to be covered afterwards, which as a second action with either another tool or a scuff of my feet, which throws me off balance. Also, the groove had to be made for planting using yet a different tool. AND, it all could have to be very light weight for arthritic hands or no handicapped gardener would use it for long. I walk with a cane, now, and for me it is simpler to sit down when I garden. Still, I used to use a plastic pipe, and while I missed having a convenient seed cup it worked well for a bit. I think it could be improved on, *IF* you could figure out how to keep it light without it breaking when you went to make a hole for the seed! All three actions in one tool might not be possible.
Edited to add. I would KILL for a riding weed whacker that was dead easy to start. Right now my youngest weed whacks for me, but he does not do a good job and he will likely move out this summer anyways. And, even the hand held weed whacker is very hard for me to start. It whirrs for many pulls before it catches. And, it is awkward to maneuver both my cane and the weed whacker, and yet I LOVE the look of a neatly weed-whacked yard!
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I am sorry, I got confused and wrote down the BEST gardening tools, excepting for the last 2 paragraphs!
But, the weed whacker is the worst because it is so hard to start and they are not in a riding model, and then the plastic tubes that handicapped gardeners use to plant seeds without using the clunky weed seeders would be greatly improved.
Please help
