The wheel McCoy

As another wheelbarrow is wheeled off to meet its maker, Toby reflects on his most memorable garden assistants

- Toby Buckland

FOLLOWING lengthy calculations involving all of my fingers, toes, and the pinky of a passer-by, I’ve calculated that over many years of lugging, I’ve sent 21 wheelbarrows to ‘The Great Shed in the Sky’.

Not all were ruined by wear. Some were rubbish to start with, including a clutch of inherited galvanized ‘gardener's barrows found in the long grass of neglected allotments.

These old-school bone-shakers were the go-to when I first got into gardening, and although lightweight and small enough to stow in a shed the handles are so short even a Lilliputian would find them awkward.

Their main fault, though, was the combo of a thin metal frame and a solid rubber tire, and just the thought of loading them with stones would bend the front forks.