I was looking on Amazon at some of the bestselling garden tools recently and I noticed this little tool that I found interesting: A Leatherman Pruning tool. It's a neat idea but as I pondered it I began to wonder exactly how useful it might be. Would it be able to replace my Swiss Army pocket knife I carry everywhere?
The Leatherman tool has pruners (which are a necessity in the garden), wire cutters, weed remover, grafting knife, bark lifter, Phillips screwdriver, saw, flat screwdriver, sprinkler tool, bottle opener, and a ruler. That's quite a few tools in one device but when I'm in the garden I usually don't need all of those tools very often. The one tool I would use the most would be the pruners which I'm pretty pleased with a pair of Fiskar pruners (Fiskars UltraBlade Traditional Bypass Pruner) I bought a couple months ago. I've needed wirecutters so rarely that I don't see need for them on the garden multitool tool, I'll just use the ones in my workbench. My Swiss army knife has the saw, screwdrivers, bottle opener and of course a more than adequate knife for whatever I need. The ruler would be handy but from seeing other Leatherman multitools I really think a good measuring tape is a much more functional choice. I'm trying to figure out what value the weed remover might be. In many cases killing weeds through boiling water, shovel, or simple weed pulling works fine. I doubt the weed remover is long enough to reach deep enough get to a dandelion or thistle taproot.
The multitool is missing one major garden tool which would make it much better, a simple pair of scissors. The scissors on my knife are one of the most useful tools I have. I use them for cuttings, for snipping twine, and for anything that needs a cut. I suppose the Leatherman tool is an attempt to help gardeners to reduce the amount of tools they carry in the garden. I'd rather just go with my pruners and my knife. Those two tools are much more functional paired together than one multitool and really aren't that inconvenient to carry, but that's just my opinion. What do you think? Is it a worthwhile tool for the garden or just a gimmick? What tools would you put in your Ultimate Garden Multitool?
Labels: garden tools