Fiskars’ PowerGear Bypass Pruner, previously reviewed, is the handiest, most used tool in my vegetable garden, but it’s too big and clunky for precision cutting of young salad greens and herbs. For that task, the company’s Pruning Snip is an outstanding and inexpensive tool.

Snipping action requires little effort because the short blades are quite sharp and a spring in the center of the handle returns the shear to its open position after each cut. A small garden scissors could work almost as well as this tool, but the spring-activated light-action cutting makes a big difference for ease of use. Like the larger pruner mentioned above, this model gives a lot of cutting output with disproportionately little input. This shear is also useful for carefully thinning densely grouped seedlings by cutting the excess plants at their bases.

-- Elon Schoenholz