Getting rid of the leaves that are dropped from deciduous trees in the Fall can be an arduous task. You can use a leaf blower and rakes of various types to form piles. Transporting these piles to a compost bin or to the street for city pick up is generally fairly easy by using a wheelbarrow, utility cart, or simply a plastic garbage can. How do you get the leaves from pile to hauling container? Many of you probably use a pitch fork or snow shovel and these are fine if you have a large task. But for most of you, I have a better choice. This is a dust pan—a large dust pan. This 14” wide pan has a looped handle that gives you good leverage. Don’t buy a 16” heavy metal pan–it’s simply unnecessarily heavy and too large. Use this aluminum pan in conjunction with your rake. Slide your pan under the leaf pile with one hand. Position your rake handle in the crook of your neck and slide your other hand down the handle to the place where the rake tines attach. Raise the handle of the pan and pull the pan and rake together to trap a huge mass of leaves. Then lift the trapped debris to your transport container. When you move from leaf pile to leaf pile, simply toss the pan into your transport container, which is much easier than carrying a large tool like a shovel or fork.
There you have it—a small, light weight tool that makes garden clean up much easier. It can even be left out in the weather since it’s made of aluminum. The Quickie-Professional Metal Handheld Dustpan can be purchased at Lowes for $11.97. This tool would be the perfect Xmas gift, or I suppose you can save this surprise for a future birthday or anniversary gift. You could even write a romantic message in the pan so that your loved one would think of you whenever he or she cleans up the yard trash.
Have fun in the garden,
Stan, The Tool Man
dustpan