How to Sharpen your Garden Shovel.  Yes, you read that right!  Sharpening your Shovels makes them much easier to work with.

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How to Sharpen Your Garden Shovel

I know that sharpening a garden shovel has probably never crossed many of your minds.  It’s not something a lot of people do.  But I have found it to be really helpful!!  This week’s Five Minute Friday video takes you through how to sharpen your garden shovel.  Check out the video below.

Why Do you need to Sharpen your Shovels?

A new (good quality) shovel has a nice sharp edge on the digging surface.  We are not talking about knife sharp, but they do have a nice sharp edge that helps the shovel cut through the soil or sod that you are digging in.  After only one season of use that “edge” will become dull.  That is especially the case if you bought a cheaper shovel that is made from softer steel.

So one of my many wintertime gardening projects is to sharpen my shovels!

How to Sharpen a Shovel

The first thing you need to sharpen a shovel is a Metal File Look for a Medium course file that is all one piece including the handle.  You don’t want to buy a file with a plastic handle.  Eventually, that handle will break off leaving a sharp little stub at the end of your file.  Better to buy a file that is all one piece or one that has solid wood handle.

Then you want to file an edge on the shovel.  Follow the point that is already on the shovel, or if it doesn’t have a point then make one going from the back of the shovel to the front.  Be sure to file in one direction.  A back and forth motion with the file will take off too much material and will not give you the desired point.

The first time you sharpen a shovel it will take a little work, but after the first time if you sharpen them every year it should only take 5 to 10 minutes of work to put the edge back on the shovel.  I do this every winter to all of my shovels to keep them cutting and digging well.

Be sure to watch the video demonstration above and if you like that video you will love my YouTube channel.  Go check it out and be sure to subscribe.