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What product do you swear by?
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this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2026
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Kobalt shovel. I had to tear up roots, rocks, dig new gardens where none had existed, and i decided to dig up a small pond (5 feet deep, 10 across) on new property and I kept breaking my old shovels, new shovels, and then I bought this kobalt. I was frustrated at the various shovels breaking in various ways and spent like 20 minutes in the shovel aisle at Lowe’s studying them all like a lunatic and begrudgingly bought this expensive one that looked the most sturdy and well built in the places all the others broke. It’s a beast. I’ll never need to buy another. It finished the jobs and has doubled the amount of work I did with all those broken ones.
This story sounds familiar. Allow me to offer a couple suggestions.
Water the ground about a half hour before you need to dig. Use plenty of water but don't make it muddy.
Sharpen the edge of your shovels with a grindstone. It makes a world of difference for reducing the effort it takes to cut through even small roots.
Get a mattock and a long handle ice chopper for large roots. Keep those tools sharp as well.
I broke two wood handled shovels within 3 weeks of buying my first house that had heavy clay soils. I also resorted to buying the metal handled kobalt shovel. These days I'm back to mostly using a wood shovel with these tips and only break out the metal handled shovel for really demanding work. The wood handled shovel is much lighter and therefore less fatigueing to use.
I bought a shovel and my partner bent it the first time out. It wasn’t even hard ground. The handle is fine, but the actual shovel is made of tissue paper. it’s frustrating when a very simple tool just can’t handle standard use.