We started selling vegetables in June 1999, when we sold our first lettuce to our postman!
The idea had really started many years ago, when we were living in Romford in the East London suburbs. Eventually (it’s a long story!*) we managed to move to Lapford in 1987, thinking that we would be able to combine running the smallholding as a market garden with holding one or two jobs. The struggle proved too much and we settled for keeping goats (and the occasional pig) and just growing vegetables for our own needs in the back garden.
The opportunity came with Dave’s redundancy and early retirement from Devon County Council at the end of March 1998. A small pension and free time meant that we could put our efforts into getting our business established and growing.
From the end of 2004, we became even busier when we started to sell some quality Garden Tools. We certainly did not set out to become mail order tool salesmen, but found ourselves stepping into that market – simply because we couldn’t find the tools we wanted!
When Dave read Eliot Coleman’s New Organic Grower in about 1993, he started looking for a UK supplier of the ‘collinear hoe’, designed by Eliot as a light, weed-cutting tool, drawn through the topmost layer of the soil with a shallow, skimming action. No bending, no backache! No-one seemed to sell these in the UK, so Dave just modified (bent!) one of the hoes he could find. Good, but a bit heavy and not really good enough!
In August 2004, he started the quest again. To cut a long story short, we made contact with the family firm in Switzerland who make these tools and now we have a real collinear hoe, and it lives up to its reputation – light and really easy to use. Hoeing is beginning to look much more attractive!
Soon we started importing collinear hoes from Switzerland and selling them by mail order. We printed our first catalogue of ‘Glaser’ tools, with all the other garden tools, many of which are also recommended by Eliot Coleman. These include oscillating stirrup hoes, specialist hoes and cultivating implements, plus wheel hoes and the attachments for them. As customers ordered what they wanted, we started importing different items from Switzerland.
In the Spring of 2005, we started stocking more of the tools and set up our ‘Online Toolshop’. Now we have a gradually increasing range of tools available online from this website. As well as the ‘Glaser’ tools, we now sell the ‘EarthWay’ Seeder and Ladbrooke Soil Blockers.
All the ‘Glaser’ tools shown in the ‘Online Toolshop’ are usually in stock. We order other items from Switzerland as needed. All our prices include UK postage. Have a look at our catalogue and let us know what you want. Pick our brains, if you like – we use many of these tools ourselves!
E-mail us with your address and we’ll send you a full catalogue and price list, or you can download them direct. Why not have a browse over the ‘OnLine Toolshop’ pages?
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For a long time we have enjoyed canal boating holidays, and started to ‘dream’ about spending a year afloat and travelling the British Inland Waterways system. In late March 2007 that dream became a reality and we started out on our 57 ft. narrowboat. Initially, Hannah moved in and took over the growing side of things, but she moved on at the end of November and Steve and Lin took over in December 2007 and hope to get into production soon. We expect to return from our travels later in 2008 – probably!
* In 2000, the Lapford Lookout, the village newsletter, published a series of articles in which Dave described our early days in gardening and some of the events on our way to starting in market gardening.
