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Meet the Maker: USA-Made Gardening Shovels

Meet the Maker: USA-Made Gardening Shovels

Meet the Maker: USA-Made Gardening Shovels

By Garrett Wade

We’ve always taken great pride in working with small manufacturers and individual makers—true craftspeople whose devotion to their trade is evident in the quality of their work. For this series, we’re spotlighting some of our longtime (and more recent) makers. This manufacturer makes some of the toughest, most durable digging tools you can buy. We’re honored to be able to help carry on the legacy of this family run business.  

“Dad had a nickel to buy me an apple when we landed in New York, and a promise of a job.” 

Ingrid Hawk was four years old when she left Germany in 1952 with her parents, Walter and Margaret Lesche. They had come, like so many immigrants post-World War II, chasing the American Dream—a good life earned with good, honest, hard work. Walter probably couldn’t have guessed, stepping onto American soil for the first time, that—among many other accomplishments—he would invent a spade so beloved that a loyal customer would one day ask to be buried with his favorite tool upon his passing.

Walter and Margaret settled in New Jersey, where they had lined up jobs with the booming Seabrook Farms, then famed as the world’s first frozen food processing plant. Life was not easy. They didn’t speak English, and they each worked grueling 12-hour shifts at the Seabrook plant, Margaret on the vegetable processing line and Walter—a trained blacksmith back in Germany—in the welding shop. 

“As soon as he had more than two nickels to rub together, he bought a piece of land, and then started building the house that we lived in,” Hawk recalls of her father, who she says embodied an old-school work ethic—“a worker beyond belief.” In the garage next to that house, Lesche set up a forge and started his first company in his adopted homeland: Walt’s Welding. Taking on repair work for local farmers and landscapers in his spare time, he developed a reputation as a fixer, builder, and problem solver. Business was good, and he was soon able to depart Seabrook and earn a living on his own.

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The King of Spades

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Walt’s Welding moved to a new building in 1964 and eventually changed its name. Lesche also expanded from repairs to manufacturing. A lot of his repairs were for broken handles, so he hit on the idea of an ultra-tough, unbreakable, all-steel spade—and started a legacy (and something of a legend) in the process. The King of Spades you order today was made in that very same building in New Jersey, to Walt’s exact specifications. 

Walter’s earliest tools earned the respect of local farmers, who needed equipment that could withstand hard use in harder conditions. As word spread and his output ramped up, his reputation and tools also began to spread, now on a national level. 

When Walter Lesche died in 2002, his family knew that his legacy was worth protecting. Ingrid and her brother Peter Lesche made the decision to work together to keep the family business running. They knew they had a high standard to maintain. 

“I think my father used the Old World thought to build it so that it's going to be around for a long time,” Hawk says. ”He never went in with the idea of, ’Oh, let's see how cheap we can make it and we can sell ten of them instead of just one.’”

“I don't know if you've ever been to Europe, but in Europe, things are made ... the German word would be stabil,” she says. “They're made to last. You build a house, you build it out of bricks.”

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Root Cutter Spade

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Despite a new generation taking over, very little has changed about the tools themselves, which Hawk describes as “identical” to Walter’s originals. “The only thing that would have changed is perhaps the machinery we use to make it. For instance, we bought a plasma cutter about 15 years ago to cut the blades, where before they used to be manually cut.”

The company’s absolute commitment to quality hasn’t gone unnoticed. In 2013, the famed Philadelphia Flower Show awarded the Lesche Digging Tool its Gold Medal—an honor that had previously only gone to plants!

Today, Walter Lesche’s little company makes nearly a hundred different items, including rakes, carts, trailers, a wide range of landscaping tools, and of course those famous spades. All of them have one thing in common: Walter Lesche’s original commitment to toughness, durability, and value.

In the last two decades, Ingrid and Peter have ensured that their tools uphold those ideals. All of their parts and materials are purchased domestically in the U.S. (aside from three different fork heads—specialty items that have to be imported from Austria). And everything is made and assembled right there in New Jersey, in the shop Walter started a decade after stepping off that ship in New York and buying Ingrid that apple.

We’ve always taken great pride in working with small manufacturers and individual makers—true craftspeople whose devotion to their trade is evident in the quality of their work. For this series, we’re spotlighting some of our longtime (and more recent) makers. This manufacturer makes some of the toughest, most durable digging tools you can buy. We’re honored to be able to help carry on the legacy of this family run business. 

“Dad had a nickel to buy me an apple when we landed in New York, and a promise of a job.” 

Ingrid Hawk was four years old when she left Germany in 1952 with her parents, Walter and Margaret Lesche. They had come, like so many immigrants post-World War II, chasing the American Dream—a good life earned with good, honest, hard work. Walter probably couldn’t have guessed, stepping onto American soil for the first time, that—among many other accomplishments—he would invent a spade so beloved that a loyal customer would one day ask to be buried with his favorite tool upon his passing.

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Walter and Margaret settled in New Jersey, where they had lined up jobs with the booming Seabrook Farms, then famed as the world’s first frozen food processing plant. Life was not easy. They didn’t speak English, and they each worked grueling 12-hour shifts at the Seabrook plant, Margaret on the vegetable processing line and Walter—a trained blacksmith back in Germany—in the welding shop. 

“As soon as he had more than two nickels to rub together, he bought a piece of land, and then started building the house that we lived in,” Hawk recalls of her father, who she says embodied an old-school work ethic—“a worker beyond belief.” In the garage next to that house, Lesche set up a forge and started his first company in his adopted homeland: Walt’s Welding. Taking on repair work for local farmers and landscapers in his spare time, he developed a reputation as a fixer, builder, and problem solver. Business was good, and he was soon able to depart Seabrook and earn a living on his own.

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Walt’s Welding moved to a new building in 1964 and eventually changed its name. Lesche also expanded from repairs to manufacturing. A lot of his repairs were for broken handles, so he hit on the idea of an ultra-tough, unbreakable, all-steel spade—and started a legacy (and something of a legend) in the process. The King of Spades you order today was made in that very same building in New Jersey, to Walt’s exact specifications. 

Walter’s earliest tools earned the respect of local farmers, who needed equipment that could withstand hard use in harder conditions. As word spread and his output ramped up, his reputation and tools also began to spread, now on a national level. 

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The King of Spades

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When Walter Lesche died in 2002, his family knew that his legacy was worth protecting. Ingrid and her brother Peter Lesche made the decision to work together to keep the family business running. They knew they had a high standard to maintain. 

“I think my father used the Old World thought to build it so that it's going to be around for a long time,” Hawk says. ”He never went in with the idea of, ’Oh, let's see how cheap we can make it and we can sell ten of them instead of just one.’”

“I don't know if you've ever been to Europe, but in Europe, things are made ... the German word would be stabil,” she says. “They're made to last. You build a house, you build it out of bricks.”

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Despite a new generation taking over, very little has changed about the tools themselves, which Hawk describes as “identical” to Walter’s originals. “The only thing that would have changed is perhaps the machinery we use to make it. For instance, we bought a plasma cutter about 15 years ago to cut the blades, where before they used to be manually cut.”

The company’s absolute commitment to quality hasn’t gone unnoticed. In 2013, the famed Philadelphia Flower Show awarded the Lesche Digging Tool its Gold Medal—an honor that had previously only gone to plants!

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Root Cutter Spade

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Today, Walter Lesche’s little company makes nearly a hundred different items, including rakes, carts, trailers, a wide range of landscaping tools, and of course those famous spades. All of them have one thing in common: Walter Lesche’s original commitment to toughness, durability, and value.

In the last two decades, Ingrid and Peter have ensured that their tools uphold those ideals. All of their parts and materials are purchased domestically in the U.S. (aside from three different fork heads—specialty items that have to be imported from Austria). And everything is made and assembled right there in New Jersey, in the shop Walter started a decade after stepping off that ship in New York and buying Ingrid that apple.

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Written by Garrett Wade

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