Garden Carts

I am blessed to have three garden carts.  One I sort of inherited, and the other two came from the transfer station.  It's amazing what people throw away.  There's a hole in the first ply of the plywood deck, that's going to have to be addressed eventually.

The one I sort of inherited belonged to the grandfather of a friend.  It was old when I got my hands on it, and I proceeded to wear it out.  I hauled firewood out of the woods with it, hauled compost and rocks in it, used it on rough terrain, bent the wheels, failed to oil the bearings,  and watched as the bottom of one skid rusted away over time until it was two pieces instead of one.

Then I got a second one at the transfer station.  The bottom was "reinforced" with OSB, which had taken on enough water that the thing felt full when empty.  It too had a bad skid, and the front was nothing special either.  The axle and wheels were okay though.  I got a sheet of (non-CCA) pressure treated 1/2" plywood and replaced the bottom.  I used a scrap of rough cedar board as a new leg.  The leg brace under the cart bolts to the board easily.  The front is new plywood too.  What I had on hand for materials for that wasn't the full height of the original, but it comes up even with the sides.  So then I had two carts.

Not long after that, I found a cart axle with good wheels at the transfer station, without it's cart.  That went on cart #1, along with another wooden leg.  So then I had two functioning carts.  The original conduit clamps that held the axle on were bolted into T-nuts, which were uncooperative, so I made some wooden blocks with 3/4" cut outs, fit them to the cart and axle, and screwed through the cart bottom from the top, into the blocks below.  Works great.

Eventually I found cart #3, which is a slightly different style.  The front is designed to swing open to dump it's load forward, and it has a bar over the top of the front for it to pivot on.  It even came with a back wall for the box, but I see no reason to bother with that.  I found that the front came open too easily, so I bolted it at the latch and added two angle brackets to hold it shut.  Otherwise, all it needed was axle grease and air in the tires and it was ready to go.

I have a wheelbarrow.  The tire is flat just now.  It's tubeless, which means it's impossible to get it pumped back up without endless fiddling with the tire, wrapping a belt around it, trying to get the bead to seal.  The wheel is wider than a cart wheel, but it's smaller diameter, so it gets stuck just as easily. 

Cart #2 has a flat tire right now too.  There's also a spot where the rim edge is bent out.  But I can hammer that back in easily enough, replace the tire (which needs it) and the inner tube with bike tires and tubes, which I can get free at the transfer station from bikes people have thrown away.

A wheelbarrow's balance while hauling isn't as good as a cart either, so the cart can carry a bigger load with less effort.  The one advantage I can think of for the wheelbarrow is that it can go down a narrower path.  There are times I think about lining up planks over rough surfaces to run the wheelbarrow on.  You can't do that with a cart so easily.  But the cart will straddle a garden bed at the width I set them up, allowing it to balance without needing a very wide path, and a cart isn't going to tip over in soft soil with an uneven load like a wheelbarrow will.

All three of mine are original Garden Way carts. 

I bought a cheap knock-off from Harbor Freight.  The body was 3/8" plywood, and not exterior grade, so it soon fell apart.  Because the metal edges are sized to wrap around the ply, I can't replace the old wood with decent thickness new pressure treated.  And the tires sun-rotted in an amazingly short period.  At least I have a spare axle and wheels from it.

I see some designs on line for home-built carts.  Maybe eventually I'll find it easier to build one of them than keep repairing the ones I have.  I sort of doubt it though.

Typically, they don't get lined up together much.  Usually one is somewhere near the drying woodshed, one is near the garden, and the third could be anywhere, possibly being used to move junk around.  If I have the option, I try to lean them up against something so the bottom is upside down at a 45° angle and sheds rain.  I used to keep them in the carport next to the garage, which came to be called the cart-port, but there's a boat in there now.