The Garden Spade

Recently I purchased a Ridgid garden spade from Home Depot. The cost was $30. The blade is flat and it has a serrated edge. The blade is thicker than a regular shovel and does not flex. I have never used anything better for cutting sod or soil and digging. This is a very sturdy and useful tool. Now I know why you always see English gardeners walking around in wellington boots carrying a garden spade. The boots keep their feet dry from the morning dew. Real wellington boots probably have steel or otherwise sturdy soles to facilitate digging with a garden spade.
I used the fence stakes and the string line to mark the line to edge. Maybe I should point out that there is a brand new top flight minor league baseball park a couple of blocks from our house. I draw inspiration from the way the field is kept. When we walk by there I like to just look at the field and examine all the details of it's grooming. I can try and imagine how those guys do what they do to keep it.






The small photo at the top left shows cutting the sod with the garden spade along the line. It worked well at an angle. First I went one direction as the photo shows loosening the soil every few inches. Then I went the other direction in the same way. Then I did the edge straight up and down the line between the grass and the gravel apron. The sod and soil lifted out easily as though unconnected to the ground.
I screened the soil into the steel pan through the medium screen to separate the grass and big clumps from the finer material. Then I used the fine screen to separate the larger pieces of gravel. I returned the soil that passed through the screen to the site and the gravel in the screen I poured into an old recycle bin. I used a hand truck to move the gravel to a pile on the other side of the compost pile.
These are all the tools I used to do the edging/ gravel mining.