Carts and wheelbarrows for heavy hauling: a sturdy and well-balanced carry-all will lighten your load

摘要

I try not to think about hard work too much, but I'm reminded of it every time I look out the window. Everywhere there's evidence of Herculean garden labors. There are hundreds of feet of manure- and leaf-mold-filled raised beds, thousands of rocks,large and small, that enclose them, and uncounted tons of flagstone, gravel, and stone dust transformed into patios and walkways. My wife, Kate, and I hauled every last ounce of it. The sheer effort of muscling all that material from here to there by hand would have exhausted us long, long ago had we not learned a little trick: Put the cart before the force. Carts, wheelbarrows, and hand trucks have helped us to wrest a garden out of a hole in the woods. We've used them to move everything from 100-plus-pound planted containers to rocks weighing several times that. Bulk has been no problem either, whether that means ferrying three bales of hay in one go or making fast work of spreading a truckload of rotted manure. In the process of performing those and countless other tasks, I've gotten cart smart. Now I know a thing or two about these wheeled wonders.