The "golden" trowel.

I really love (garden) tools. On a garden fair I find it very difficult to overshoot a stand with good garden tools. However, a stand with shiny copper tools in the gardenfair of Beervelde gave me no trouble at all to pass by. Copper tools are for garden women with golden faucets in the bathroom, was my opinion. So I always gave the stand a wide berth.

This summer however, an elderly garden woman told me that working with copper tools took a lot less power. Less power? That had to be something for me!

So this Autumn I visited the 'Copper Traces’ stand on the garden fair Beervelde . I had a long conversation with Henny Schalen, the stand holder. (www.kopersporen.nl) She told me enthusiastically about her tools, which incidentally turned out to be made of bronze.

The advantages: It works easier because the material is thinner, it stays free of rust and copper tools enrich the soil with copper trace elements. Thus providing plants with essential nutrients.

Back at home I immediately put the trowel to use. And with much pleasure. It is incredibly thin material, yet very strong. Because of that it works very well in my heavy clay soil. The edges are sharp and that allows me to use the trowel for 'weeding' by keeping the blade in a very flat angle.

Who could have imagined that in 2014?

Back to the Bronze Age!

          Open garden days, click here:

Copper trowels.

The stand holder at gardenfair  of Beervelde.

I bought the smallest trowel.