Next up in our “work horses of our gardens” series is one of the most useful tools we have. This one might come as a surprise for some, but it’s our garden wagons! We use the ever living heck out of these, in every season of the year!
One of the measures we use to gauge our favorite tools is how much it multiplies our force. These garden carts do that in spades! We use them to haul all sorts of things – brush, rocks, firewood, sod, soil, wood chips, plants, planted containers and practically anything else that will fit in them.
Our “OG” garden cart is a standard 7 cubic foot Gorilla cart. I can be a little bit stubborn sometimes, so a wheelbarrow was always “good enough” for me. But, after dumping a few too many firewood runs inadvertently, I decided to try the wagon style. After using the wagon style, it’s definitely on my essential tool list! We’ve used this OG cart for nearly a decade now and other than replacing the wheels, it’s held up to our subarctic winters well.
We liked our Gorilla cart so much that we outfitted our ATV with a much larger 18 cubic foot garden cart. This changed the game, in so many ways! We were able to reduce the amount of trips we needed to take and also reduce a lot of physical labor with this tool. It allowed us to take on some larger projects, too. Most of all, it makes our container gardening a breeze since we can transport full buckets with ease!
You might think that since we “upgraded” that we have no use for our OG garden cart! And you’d be wrong. Our smaller cart can go anywhere we need it to, is still super convenient and is our go-to before even that old wheelbarrow! We use it all the time, hardly a week goes by where we don’t find a use for it! So, having both has proven to be beneficial.
There’s few tools that if it were to break tomorrow that I’d be immediately planning a replacement. Both of our garden carts are on that list, they are that essential to our gardens and general northern lifestyle.
