Tools You’ve Never Heard Of Before
Have you ever browsed one of our product pages and wondered – what the heck is a dibble bar? Well, if you have, you’re surely not alone. Everyone is used to the standard hand tools that can be found in a hardware store or in your own garage, but if you’re a home gardener or DIYer, you may not be familiar with these kinds of products before.
The tools we mention below all have specialized purposes that make them a little less known to beginner gardeners, but they all have unique features that can cut the time it takes you to complete certain projects in half.
BROADFORK
A broadfork makes cultivating large plots of land easy. Using one is remarkably simple and practically effortless. It’s a large hand tool that has two pole handles that connect to a row of steel tines along a crossbar, which allows you to put your foot on the tool and drive it into the ground while holding the two grips. It works essentially like a manual rototiller but is much kinder to the environment.
To use, hold our Broadfork with Fiberglass Handles upright so that the tines are angled straight down. Using your body weight, push the tines into the ground using your foot. Once all of the tines are underground, gently rock and wiggle the tool to loosen the deep soil. Then, with your foot still on the tine crossbar, grab the handles and pull back using a combination of your body’s and the tool’s leverage. The beauty of this product is that instead of bending over and lifting, like you do with traditional shovels or pitchforks, the broadfork is designed to use your body weight, not your muscles – giving you a great full-body workout without hurting your back.
This tool has benefits that radiate far beyond mixing and tilling your soil. While mixing, a broadfork will maintain your soil’s layers, which is essential because each layer has a specific germinating purpose. Rototiller blades move so fast that they rip through and destroy those ecological benefits that are layered in the soil. Mixing too much brings important soil bacteria and microorganisms to the top layer, exposing them to so much sunlight, oxygen, and water that they lose the benefits that they’ll provide to your plants’ roots.
LEAF SCOOPS
Very soon, we in the northern U.S. will have a flurry of autumn leaves to collect. These leaves can be beautiful to watch, as they slowly fall, create colorful piles on our lawns, and blow around in the wind, but raking the hundreds of dead leaves can be a headache. First, you have to gather your supplies: a lawn rake or two, a tarp to collect them on, and a trash can or receptical to dispose of them in. Then, after you’ve gathered your first pile, you realize that you might have to take two or three trips to get rid of all of the leaves on your lawn. And if your property is surrounded by trees, this task can take an entire afternoon.
Enter our Leaf Scoops. Made from high-quality polypropylene, these round scoops are perfect for scooping large piles of leaves, mulch, twigs, and other lawn debris with ease. Simply, rake your leaves into a pile, slip your hand through the handgrip, and use the 9-tined scoops to grab as much material as you can. And with their polypropylene construction, they’re flexible enough to move through material but won’t bend or break on you or tear up your grass. They measure a little under 15 inches wide, 12.5 inches tall, and 4 inches deep, making their scoop capacity quite impressive.
They fit perfectly in most commercial trash cans, so after you dump the leaves, you can use the scoop to compress the material in your bin and make room for more. And at $14.99 for two hand scoops, they won’t break the bank. So ditch the tarp this year, and get yourself our 12.5″ Poly Leaf Scoops.
DIBBLE BAR
A dibble bar is a digging tool that creates holes in the ground to plant trees, bushes, and large plants. It has a thick, tapered steel blade – with a footstep for control – that easily pierces into the ground to separate soil for planting. The T-style handle allows users to apply even, painless pressure to the tool and into the earth, and in two moves of the ground, you can effortlessly create an opening for a young tree or shrub.
Whether you plant trees professionally or as a hobby, our All Steel Dibble Bar with T-style Handle will cut your planting time in half. To use, first make sure the ground is soft – the best results come after rain or in clay/loam-like soil conditions. Simply push the Dibble Bar straight into the ground using the footstep, then push the soil to one side to create an opening and remove the bar. Next, place your seedling or starter plant into the ground, and flip the tool 90-degrees and insert it into the soil again, below where you have placed your plant. Push the soil towards the plant to create a snug space for the plant to grow, and you’re done!
According to One Tree Planted, a non-profit organization committed to reforestation, humans destroy an area of trees the size of a football field every 1.2 seconds. That’s terrifying. It’s hard to imagine all of the devastation occurring when we, at home, can’t see it, but deforestation has rapidly progressed to a point where we are destroying about 80,000 acres of forests every day. We need trees to survive on this planet, so buy your Dibble Bar today and join the reforestation movement – one planted tree at a time.
CAPROCK SHOVEL
You surely understand the basics of a shovel, but have you ever heard of a caprock shovel? Caprock shovels are unique because they have shovel heads that are much shallower than typical digging shovels and are perfect for use on waterlogged or heavy clay soil. With the addition of a weighted fiberglass core, this tool weighs 8 pounds, which is pretty hefty, but the added weight helps to break up tough compact dirt, roots, coral, rock, and decomposed granite.
It is also sometimes referred to as a pony or irrigation shovel, most likely due to its past uses in the gardening and farming industries, but this shovel can do anything you need it to including removing sod, digging through soil, and cutting up hardened materials like roots and rock.
The head of our Weighted Caprock Irrigation Shovel with Long Fiberglass Handle starts out as a cut from a single sheet of 12-gauge steel and is stamped into shape. We heat treat and temper all of our steel products to strengthen the metal alloys inside and cover them with a powder coat that protects against rust and extends the lifetime of the tool.
SHINGLE REMOVER
Our company 100% Made in the USA Bully Tools started with a single product – the ProShingle 10-Gauge Shingle Remover with Fiberglass Handle and Poly D-Grip. A shingle shovel – a product we also sell – is a staple in the roofing industry, but the ProShingle is a tool of our own invention. It is constructed out of two pieces of cut steel – the blade with ribbed teeth that slides under shingles and the back fulcrum that is appropriately angled to rest on any roof.
This tool is ideal for lifting and removing roof shingles and nails with ease. The blade has teeth that extend 2 inches from the 15-degree bend and allows the tool to reach just far enough under shingles to pop them off. Plus, it removes nails as well – simply align a nail in between two of the teeth and push down on the D-Grip handle. The back fulcrum adds extra strength to the tool and provides leverage that no other shingle remover on the market has.
If you’re a professional roofer or are skilled enough to fix your own shingles, consider adding our ProShingle to your tool wishlist. You’ll be amazed by how efficient this tool is, and with its 100% American construction, you’ll be amazed by the quality too.
BEAN HOOK
Our Bean Hook / Paver Weeder with Fiberglass Handle is a handy tool for removing the weeds in between the cracks in your pavers, bricks, pads of stamped concrete, and more. It has a thin but sharp, 3 1/2-inch blade that is attached to a medium-length handle, which allows users to get into those tight spaces without having to bend down. It’s also useful for pulling out stuck debris from these places, furrowing soil for planting, and removing weeds from the perimeter of your lawn or garden beds.
It goes by a few other names as well, such as a weed hook or briar hook, but it gets its main title of ‘bean hook’ because of its ability to easily remove beans pods from vines. Overall, the biggest takeaway from this product is that it can fit in places that no other tool can, and compared to other bean hooks on the market, ours is made with thicker steel that is heat-treated and tempered for strength, and the blade is overwelded to the neck of the tool, so you won’t have to worry about it bending or breaking on you.
SOIL PROBE
Our Steel Soil Probe with T-Style Handle is much more than just a rod of steel. Its 1/2″ steel diameter rod with a sharpened tip is useful for locating underground septic and plumbing systems, testing soil, and quick aeration. It is available in 36″, 48″, and 53″ lengths and is a great tool to have if you are in a plumbing, farming, agricultural science, geology, or contracting profession.
But, it’s just as useful around your home too. If you’re adding an extension, excavating an area of your land, or are planning to complete any project that involves extensive digging, you need a soil probe to locate those pipes, tanks, and drain fields located deep below your property. This tool may seem small, but it could save you thousands of dollars in repairs if you were to hit something you weren’t meant to.
Our opinion is to spend a little to save a lot, and with the comfortable, padded T-style handle, you’ll save yourself from those unnecessary aches and pains too.
MORTAR HOE
Mortar is a thick paste used by masons and contractors to stick together and fill in the gaps between building materials like bricks, stones, and blocks. It is made from water, cement, and sand, making it much thicker than concrete which has a lower water-to-cement ratio, but when using either of these bonding materials, you need to make sure that you use the right tool. Our Mortar Hoe with Long Fiberglass Handle, and our short-handled version, have two holes in the hoe head that allows air into the material and results in a better flow while you mix.
This tool is useful for spreading and mixing concrete, mortar, and plaster and is a must-have tool for any professional or at-home installation of a block retaining wall, stone facade, or DIY art project.
BULB PLANTER
A bulb planter has a hollow cylinder attached to a handle, and it is the ideal tool for planting bulbs in bulk and extracting gardening soil with ease. If you’re an avid planter, you will definitely want this tool come spring whether you plant flowers, shrubs, or vegetables. This tool gets rid of all of the back breaking work that comes with planting; you won’t have to kneel on the ground and dig multiple holes. With a bulb planter, you can simplify the entire planting process. Press your weight onto either of the footsteps and push the tool into soil. Twist the tool 90-degrees and pull it out to reveal a perfect circle in the earth. Our 3-Inch Diameter Bulb Planter with Steel T-Style Handle creates 3 inch holes, perfect for any sized bulb or seedling. The taped blade slides easily into any type soil and is perfect for extracting large samples of soil for testing.
All of these products and more are available for purchase on our website. We manufacture high-quality Lawn and Garden, Snow and Ice Removal, and Specialty tools, all at an affordable price. Shop our selection of 100% Made in the USA tools here.
