Ned James is in the garden with a weeder when the phone rings. He’s not actually weeding, though. A master artisan in a resurgent field, James is testing the device, one of about 20 he has dreamed up since dropping out of architectural metalwork to found Ashfield Tools in 2012.
“It’s been fun to experiment with new tools and different ideas and try them out in the garden here,” he says after answering the call. “The weeder is forged out of one piece of steel with the blade at a right angle to the shank. [It’s] thin and long, almost like a scythe, so you can pull through the surface of the soil easily. You can jab it behind a clump of grass or a well-established weed and just rip through the roots under it.”
This forge-to-garden beauty won’t appear at the local garden center or big box store, which is sort of the point. James studied hollowware and jewelry at the Boston School of the Museum of Fine Arts then worked at both the Tin Shop and the Blacksmith Shop at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Mass., before striking out on his own. Eventually, he moved from large-scale work and restorations to make tools at his home studio in Ashfield because he wanted his work to reach a wider audience.
His course-change deftly preceded two trends. The gardening boom and the “buy it once” movement, a commitment to reduce waste by purchasing quality items that will last instead of mass-produced merchandise that sooner or later (often sooner) will meet the landfill. The trend strikes a deep vein for gardeners, who value their connection with the earth and things that endure and seek items to work the soil that are equally spiritual and meaningful. That’s why these cultural currents have floated James and fellow toolsmith Seth Pauley toward the top of a suddenly roiling market, full of appreciative if demanding diggers.
James can’t keep up. It takes him roughly one hour per tool, though he works in batches to increase his efficiency. The time spent includes oiling the handles to prevent cracking, sharpening each edge, and perfecting the angles and offsets to maximize effectiveness. Each item on the checklist is completed by the only hands he trusts, his own. “I don’t have any employees.,” he says. “I like to have the work come out the way I want it to, which for the most part means I have to do it myself or be disappointed with something going wrong.”
That bespoke approach extends to materials, as James sources his birch and ash handles from Maine and he secures his metal from a local manufacturer, Macy’s Steel. “I started out just going through their dumpster and picking out the scraps and experimenting with that,” he says, “but then I started buying it in 10-foot lengths.”
At each step, the goal is a mix of form and function, where simple and effective meets artful. “It should be a lifetime tool,” he says. “The tool should push easily through the ground, it should be heavy duty and sturdy and it should stand up to abuse in a way that other tools may not.” And the resistance of stubborn weed can certainly trigger implement abuse.
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James stands behind the work, too, repairing and replacing broken items at no charge, including some that had a run in with a high-powered lawnmower.
Passionate gardeners clearly vibe with his aesthetic and pragmatism; of all his tools, the one that sells best is the simplest and sturdiest. “I sort of thought that maybe some of the unusual tools might be the best sellers… like some of the hand hoes. But for some reason the tools that sell the best are just the standard trowels.”
The pandemic has created a surge in demand as people are reconnecting with the natural world. “Normally, by Father’s Day sales let up and I can catch up on inventory, but this year it just never stopped.”
Pig in a Poker
Seth Pauley lives across the country but walks the same road. At Red Pig Garden Tools in Lake Oswego, Oregon, Pauley, too, crafts beautiful implements designed to stand up to hard work. And while James got his start through art school, Pauley found a mentor in the original owner of Red Pig, Bob Denman (whose pet pig inspired the name, which sounds like it could be a craft brewery). After taking a course at a knife-making shop in Portland, Pauley apprenticed with Denman for about a year and a half, learning how to weld, hand rivet, sharpen and shape. “I put in thousands of hours working on an anvil to find the right technique,” he says.
Like James, Pauley is feeling the crush of increased demand, but just as you can’t rush a tomato, you can’t rush a trowel; Pauley doesn’t consider speed a value. Seth Pauley forges a cultivator in the original Red Pig Garden workshop where he learned to blacksmith. The company has since moved to Lake Oswego, Oregon where Pauley continues to handcraft every tool.
“I had to more than double my tool production this year,” he says. “Part of it comes from the fact that people have been really into gardening. They are searching for tools online as opposed to making impulse buys at a Home Depot.”
The company’s repertoire of sixty-plus pieces includes trowels, weeders, hand plows, edging knives and spades. There are hand forks and specialty widgers. All of it made for the type of gardener who appreciates the nuanced difference between his sweeder (a combination of weeder and a seeder) and rockery trowel (for digging deep into cracks and crevices).
Pauley’s rabbiting spade (a shortened, thin-headed shovel traditionally used in England for digging rabbits out of their holes) uses high quality carbon steel and incorporates a strapped design, in which the shovelhead wraps around the handle and is riveted into place. “Like all my tools, I hand rivet and don’t glue the tool into the handle. The result creates a strong mechanical connection that cannot be found in mass-produced tools,” he says. “Strap method is actually an old, traditional blacksmith method of putting tools together.”
That sense of tradition infuses Pauley’s approach. He’s a species of garden historian who not only produces modern variations of classic items, but combines various styles and technologies from different places and eras. He’s currently working on small, lightweight implements for people who have patio gardens or grow house plants. “Tools like my houseplant-cultivator trowel combine American Revolution-era design for a fork with cultivator and trowel aspects that are used in bonsai, even though it does not look anything like a bonsai tool,” he says
The specifics of Pauley’s crossbreeding may not be immediately clear to the end users, but because they matter to Pauley, their job will be easier and more satisfying. “ I love the stories and histories behind [the tools],” he says, “and I love the way they impact people’s lives.”
Future Cast
The history of blacksmithing — shaping heated metal with an implement — dates to the dawn of the Iron Age, 1,500 years ago. It’s a rich tradition based on handed-down knowledge that inspires both James and Pauley. Still, the dedication required to learn and the physical demand of the work give both men pause about the future of the craft. “Blacksmithing is something it seems that most people don’t know how to do anymore,” says James. “I just wonder if there are going to be youths who seek me out to learn about the craft. I just worry this information may die with me.”
And while Pauley agrees that “there are fewer and fewer people learning to do it and even fewer who are able to do it as a profession,” he adds that, “I am optimistic that I can mentor future artisans to keep growing and teaching this business and continue to make great tools.”
Pauley is probably right; others will take up the hammer and forge, just as a new generation has taken up butchering. bee keeping and beer making. The sound of steel shaping steel echoes even deeper in our collective psyches. “We’re makers of tools and users of tools by definition as humans, and I think that even gardening is something that’s in our DNA to some extent,” says James. “We survive by observing the natural world and manipulating it as best we can for our food, clothing, and shelter and everything that’s important to us.”