How our guides are made

Our buying guides help you choose gear for a specific job around the home and garden, such as clearing a driveway after a storm or keeping a walk free of ice. This page explains how the guides that link to it are put together: each of them follows what is written here, and each also has its own section on how its picks were chosen. All our guides are in our Garden Guides.

Last updated November 11, 2026.

How we choose the picks

We start with the job, then look at the products that can do it. For each one we gather its specs, read what any outlet that tested it found, and check its listing on Amazon. Two rules apply:

• On the day we check a guide, we link a product only when its Amazon listing shows it in stock, as a new item.
• When we write or rebuild a guide, the picks it recommends first must also be sold by Amazon itself or by the company that makes them, not only by another seller.

We look at price when we choose, but we do not print the prices of the products we link on Amazon, because they change often. Amazon shows the current price when you open a link.

Where the facts come from

We do not test products ourselves for these guides, and no guide says we did. When a guide gives a test result, it names the outlet that ran the test and links to it. Specs such as size, weight and power come from the maker, through its product page, manual or spec sheet, or from the product's Amazon listing, and the guide says which. The sources we use include:

• Makers' own product pages, manuals and spec sheets.
• The Amazon listing for each product, for its stock, seller and listed specs.
• Published tests by outlets that ran them, such as Bob Vila, Popular Mechanics and Pro Tool Reviews.
• The buying advice Consumer Reports publishes openly.
• University extension services, such as University of Minnesota Extension and Penn State Extension, for practical and safety advice.

Charts and tables in our guides are our own work, drawn from those published specs and credited results. Where a guide compares costs, such as clearing snow yourself against paying a service, each figure comes from a named source or is worked out from one. Before a guide goes live, a separate review opens the source of every number the guide credits to an outlet or a maker and checks the number against it.

Dates and updates

Stock changes quickly, especially in winter. Each guide says when its listings were checked. When a later check finds a pick unavailable on Amazon, we replace it or take its link down, and the guide says what changed and on which date.

How the links work

Most products in our guides come from other companies, and our links take you to them on Amazon. Each guide shows this line at the top, before its first Amazon link: "As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Some links are paid."

Who we are

Spear Head Spade is a family business in New Jersey. Our name comes from our own tool, the Spear Head Spade, the first hybrid spade and shovel. It was invented in Windsor, CT fifteen years ago and is double-patented. Our guides carry the Spear Head Spade name rather than a writer's, and they cover jobs in every season, including many that call for tools we do not sell. You can read more in our story.

Corrections

When a later check shows that something in a guide is wrong or out of date, we correct it.