For my last few reviews I have been rummaging through my garage looking for garden tools. I'm not a big fan of gardening, in fact for the most part I hate it. But obviously sometimes we all have to do things we don't really like and gardening is one of these tasks that has to be done. Most of the garden tools in the shed actually look rather lovely, despite having had most of them for quite a few years, they simply don't get the use they really should. One such example of this is the little garden fork we have. I recently reviewed the trowel and as these two often make a little set I thought I had better review the fork as well.

So this time we are looking at the Wilkinson Sword Carbon Steel Hand Fork. Why they have to give it such a long name I'm not sure. So this is just a simple small fork that can be used along with a trowel for breaking up the soil and digging out those pesky weeds. I think the reason we chose this one was simply because it matched the trowel, the two were a reasonable price and so it seemed like the sensible option to go for this one.

The fork has a stainless steel head which is quite nicely crafted when you look closely at it. This is supposedly so that less soil will stick to it when you are digging in the ground. On reflection I would say this probably does work, as more often than not when you stick it into the ground it does come out clean. The connection between the handle and the head looks very solid, this has never come lose in any way.

The handle of the fork is made from hardwood, it has a nice finish to it and it has been made weatherproof to ensure you can use this is all weathers and it will retains it's nice finish. The handle seems to be a pretty comfortable shape, it fits nicely into the hand and even when used over a longer period of time it seems to remain comfortable. This is an important thing in my opinion as many people who do a spot of gardening have soft hands and a poorly shaped handle will soon give them blisters.

When it comes to practical purposes the main reason we use this one is for weeding out those nasty little weeds. This fork is good fro breaking up the top soil and picking out the weeds. However, we have also used this one for scraping weeds out of the cracks in the patio, the fork tips are quite sharp so they get into the cracks pretty well and remove anything unwanted. There are probably quite a few other uses for this one so it really is a handy little tool to have around.

As I mentioned earlier one of the reasons we went for this fork was the price. Looking around online you can pick one of these up for less then £5 so they really are not to expensive at all. Value wise they rate very highly as this is the kind of tool that if looked after properly will last you pretty much forever. When I say looked after, all you really need to do to maintain this is give it a wipe when you have finished with it to remove and loose dirt and make sure you keep it in a dry place.

Overall then I would say the Wilkinson Sword Carbon Steel Hand Fork gets a big thumbs up. It makes a boring task easier and quicker and also comes at a very affordable price. If you want a good basic hand fork then you really can't go far wrong with this one.