Master Gardener Foundation Educational Meeting – Toolish Talks

The Master Gardener Foundation of Clark County presents

“Toolish Talks” with Bob Denman, Owner, Red Pig Garden Tools

Join us Tuesday, Feb 6th at 7:00 PM

in CASEE Center, Bldg B, Rm 202/205 located at 11104 NE 149th St, Brush Prairie WA.

Free to the public and members. No registration required.

What is the difference between a muck rake and manure drag?

What is the “lift” of your shovel and why does having the wrong lift cause backache.

What are the differences between a garden trowel, transplant trowel, rockery trowel and potting trowel and do you need one of each?

What do you need to know about ergonomics before you buy a hand pruner?

What is the best tool for…

…grubbing out blackberries?

…turning a compost heap?

…removing weeds from the seams between bricks?

…root pruning?

How long should your rake or hoe handle be? (Too short and you’re courting a

backache. Too long and you’ll whack yourself in the head.)

If you had attended one of Bob Denman’s tool talks you would know the answers to all those questions, and more. You also would have enjoyed playing “Name that tool” wherein Denman tests the tool acumen of the audience using strange and wonderful gadgets from his collection of horticultural implementia.

Bob Denman and his wife, Rita, opened Red Pig Garden Tools, in 2006, in Boring, Oregon. An exciting “toy store for gardeners” offering hundreds of familiar and uncommon tools for horticulture, agriculture and siviculture. Previously located in Orange, California, their store is the only one of its kind in the entire United States. In addition to its uniquely exhaustive invention of tools, the store offers—

– Dozens of tools hand forged on the premises and available nowhere else in the world.

– Custom handcrafting of garden tools and accessories.

– Modification of off-the- shelf tools to suit the intended user.

Insofar as he knows, Denman is the only blacksmith in the country specializing in garden tools.

The Denmans started their business as a mail order operation in 1986 and opened their store in 1994, then relocated to Oregon in late 2004. Denman spent one and a half years, tearing down two old barns near Eagle Creek and using the lumber to build the barn which houses their store in Boring. The store in opened in 2006.

In addition to being a blacksmith and tool monger, Denman has served as a product development consultant to Corona Clipper Company, the nation’s leading manufacturer of professional manual pruning tools. He has designed garden tools for other companies and holds several patents for tool designs.

He is also a contributor to several national and regional garden magazines including Fine Gardening, Horticulture and New Pioneer Magazine. He provided the textual basis for the tool section of a past edition of Sunset’s Western Garden Book. He’s also been on Garden Time TV program that’s aired on Saturday mornings.

As a speaker Denman has shared both useful knowledge and abundant humor with scores of garden clubs, plant societies, master gardeners groups, staff at public gardens and attendees at garden seminars and plant sales. His audiences have varied in size from a handful to a horde. More than 500 attended one of his talks at The Huntington Gardens in Southern California.