Review · Accessible Gardening
Best ergonomic shovel: Radius Root Slayer vs Fiskars vs the one I actually keep
Tested by someone with a bad back and by a reader with arthritis. O-grip handles, blade weight, and which one is a gimmick.
Affiliate links below. I bought three of these four myself; the fourth was returned after testing. Commission never changes the order. How we test and why we're honest about it.
“Ergonomic” on a garden tool usually means a rubber grip and a $15 markup. The two design choices that actually change how a shovel feels are the handle shape and where the weight sits — an O-grip you push with your forearm instead of squeezing, and a blade balanced close to the handle rather than out at the tip.
Radius Garden built a whole line around the first idea and mostly got it right; Fiskars is lighter but the D-grip still asks for grip strength you might not have. Neither is the right answer for everyone, and one of the four tools I tested is a gimmick that I'd like the shelf space back for.
Full write-up coming: the four tools rated for weight, grip diameter, leverage and price, plus notes from a reader with rheumatoid arthritis who used each of them for a month.
