As the weather turns milder with the coming of spring, there are all kinds of opportunities for more time spent outdoors. Whether you have garden beds to tend at home or planning this season’s first camping trip, the tools at your disposal can make a world of difference. Enter the Folding Shovel: ideal for preparing soil or piling coal for a campfire, but with a few key upgrades to make it the tool you always reach for.
The History Of The Folding Shovel
At its most basic level, a shovel is a powerful digging tool; it has an angled blade that scoops dirt and other materials away, and the sharp edge easily slices into most soils. Plus, the ledge at the top of the blade allows for easy foot placement, allowing you to use your body weight to sink the shovel more deeply into the earth.
The Barebones Folding Shovel was inspired by a shovel used by the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps for forest management and flood control. This uniquely-designed shovel includes an added feature that enables it be used for trenching. Its three-way locking collar allows the shovel head to lock at 90°, turning it into the perfect tool to cut waterways for irrigation (without ruining your back). This mechanism also allows the head to fold flat to the handle, providing easy and compact storage. The head is constructed with sharpened Manganese steel that slices through roots as well as it scoops, and the steel D-ring grip on the end of the Beechwood handle is accented with an additional piece of Beechwood for a strong, comfortable grasp.
Gardening Tips With The Folding Shovel
In the garden, a shovel is an obvious asset at any stage of planting. Turning over soil is easily managed, as is large weed removal. Plus, you can scoop fertilizer or compost, making quick work of each gardening project. And as mentioned, trench-digging and irrigation are particularly back-breaking projects, but the locking collar simplifies the process and allows the shovel head to fold flat. After you're done, store it easily in a corner of a shed or garage.
The Folding Shovel For Camping & More
The Folding Shovel is the ideal wilderness tool, as well. When you’re preparing your campfire, use it to shovel coal - or if you’re camping with no existing fire pit, the folding camp shovel makes quick work of the project. To create a fire pit, remove sticks, grass, and other burnable elements within a 10-foot radius from the location of your fire pit. Once completed, dig a hole approximately a foot deep and circle the hole with large rocks. Fill with firewood or coal and carry on with your night, remembering to shovel dirt onto the fire when you’re turning in for the night.
Bring the Barebones Shovel on a longer camping or backpacking trip: it’s ideal for clearing snow or debris from a campsite or a vehicle, removing large rocks from underneath a tent, or digging a hole away from your campsite for waste disposal. Plus, a shovel is vitally useful for resolving off-road mishaps - increasingly common as spring showers and sunshine create snowmelt and mud puddles. (This makes the best folding shovel for a car!)
The Small Folding Shovel You Can Rely On
The Barebones Shovel’s foldable head makes for a light heft and easy storage that fits into any vehicle or garden shed - and its simple-but-intentional design guarantees reliability and versatility, holding up throughout years of use.