My Other Car Is a Garden Cart

A while back the nice people at TroyBilt offered me the opportunity to review one of their products. They have an extensive line of power equipment for the outdoors, everything from mowers to tractors to snow throwers. Given the size of my property and the fact that snow is just an urban legend around here, I didn't think I'd find anything that I could really use and report on. But then I saw it on their web site--a beautiful red garden cart--and it was love at first sight.

To understand why I'd be so turned on by a garden cart, you have to consider that as a single person, I do an awful lot of solo schlepping. Piles of mulch, bags of potting soil, who knows how many big, heavy terracotta pots--I've lugged it all, and I have the chiropractor bills to prove it. I should have invested in a wheelbarrow years ago, but whenever it came down to spending the money on plants or a wheelbarrow, the plants won.

But following my request to TroyBilt, the cart arrived via UPS in a very large, flat cardboard box. There's a slight catch--assembly required. It's not too awful to put it together, although I did have to call the manufacturer (Agri-Fab) to send some screws that were missing, and there were also a couple of extraneous holes in the side assemblies, which I can only assume were put there to confuse me (it worked).

However, now that I've got the thing assembled, love is in the air again--and on wheels! It rides very smoothly and moves easily over mulch, concrete edges, and stepping stones. The product specs state that it will hold 300 lbs., and I believe it. It feels quite sturdy. It has two wheels and two legs, so it's much more stable than a wheelbarrow, but it still has the pouring ability of a wheelbarrow because the front end slides up and out, making it easy to dump loads of mulch or compost. It even has four slots on the front end to hold garden tools.

I'm very happy with this garden cart and if you think you could love one to, hurry over to Garden Rant, where they are holding a giveaway for five (5!) of these beauties. That's no small swag--these garden carts retail for $149.99. But don't wait because you have to enter by Monday, 7/7 at 5pm EST.

Selfish as it may seem, I'm keeping mine--first, because I really like it and it's a huge relief to my aching back, and second, because if the price of gas goes up much more I may have to hitch the cats up to it and leave my Beetle in the driveway.