How a spate of breaking tools led us to Sneeboer...
We’re bored of poor-quality gardening tools that break under the stresses and strains of garden life. We genuinely went through a spate of breaking tools – long handled forks that buckled under the pressure, trowels that bent away from their handles. All from supposedly high-quality brands with lifetime guarantees. But they just haven’t been up for the task and they are beyond fixing.
So we looked around. We asked serious gardeners what they rate and we also watched Gardeners’ World carefully – because if it’s good enough for Monty Don, then it’s definitely something to look into!
All roads led to Sneeboer. They’re a 4th generation family business. They make all the tools they sell themselves in the Netherlands. They are all hand forged with the knowledge and skills that they have been accumulating since 1913.
We bought a range to test (yes, we really do test things to ensure they are good – you’ll never catch sight of the things that we don’t like, rate, or think aren’t good value for a ‘buy once, buy well’ purchase’. The quality is absolutely amazing. The thing that really stands out is that they are hefty! You can physically feel the quality. Which is a problem when you’re buying something online – but trust us – they just feel quality and will make your other tools feel light weight (in all ways) in comparison.
Here’s a few ‘stand out’ things that we like about them (collectively – rather than the specifics of each tool in the range). Firstly, their selection of tools are great and really distinctive. They blend modern tool design with traditional (and trusted) methods of making them. There’s some unusual shapes and designs (specifically their trowel and hoes), but they all have function at the heart of what they do. They are all stainless steel (so there are no issues of rust) and they have sharpened edges which means you can really get into hard soil easily. Which is music to our ears given the clay soil we battle with.
I think you can probably tell that we’re genuinely excited to have received our first delivery. It seems like a long time coming – after testing them and deciding on the range we’d stock, we then had to wait for them to be hand made – so 8 weeks later they are here! But we know that good things absolutely come to those who wait – especially given their strapline is ‘tools for life, and generations to come’. It’s definitely worth waiting for something that’ll last a lifetime. Take a look….
Louise