Free Republic

A man who had returned home from his allotment with a trug of vegetables and gardening tools strapped to his belt was arrested by armed police, after a member of the public said they had seen “a man wearing khaki clothing and in possession of a knife”. Samuel Rowe, 35, who works as a technical manager at a theatre, had come back from his allotment in Manchester earlier this month and decided to trim his hedge with one of his tools, a Japanese garden sickle, when police turned up on his doorstep. “I just heard shouting behind me, and then...

I'm needing some recommendations for brands, lines, suppliers of quality garden tools - spades, forks, hoes, etc. Not the flimsy cr@p that's sold at the big box garden and hardware centers (I bend/break those in no time flat), but quality stuff to last a lifetime. I've read enough times to be believable that footing the bill up front for quality tools is more cost effective in the long run. I have heavy clay soil that turns to concrete in our Texas summers, so please be aware that I am talking about REAL QUALITY, INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH tools.