Corona Premium Stainless-Steel Comfort-GEL® Weeder

If you’re an avid gardener, you’ve no doubt bought dozens of hand tools that haven’t held up, have become dull after one season of use or are just downright uncomfortable to use for any reasonable length of time when you’re doing basic garden maintenance. A few years ago, I discovered Corona Tools and I’ve found a few real winners in their inventory.

This year, their clear winner is the Premium Stainless-Steel Comfort-GEL Weeder. It’s part of their premium grade hand tools collection and it’s built for hard work. What I like best about this tool is that it isn’t just a forked tool to attack weeds, but is built more like a narrow trowel, and has a handy serrated edge that works really well for cutting weeds and roots. Yes, of course, you typically like to pull the whole root out intact, but sometimes you have a particularly stubborn weed that needs to be hacked apart to get it out of the ground, especially during these drought conditions that have made our ground like concrete. A simple twist of the handle sends the serration right through the problem root and pops the offending weed out of the ground in one swift move.

The ComfortGEL® grips are particularly nice for a long day’s work in the garden and, so far, I haven’t had any blisters at all from these. They come with a lifetime warranty, and they list for only $15.40 on the Corona website. You can also find them locally at Home Depot and Ace Hardware.

I also highly recommend the Corona Classic Cut® Branch & Stem Pruner, which now sells for $39.15 and was my first purchase from this manufacturer. It remains my go-to pruner for everything 5 years later and I’ve purchased the sharpener from Corona as well due to my heavy use of this product.