If you were shopping for shoes, you’d surely try them on before you purchased a pair. Similarly, when shopping for garden tools, you shouldn’t hesitate to take a spade or rake off the rack and check how it feels in your hand before wielding it. Other shoppers may stare, but don’t let that deter you. You and your garden tools will have a long and close relationship, and that means you want to select only good partners.

Does the handle fit your hand? If not, it’s going to give you blisters.

Does the tool feel well balanced when you brandish it as you would when working? If not, you’ll have to use more muscle to control the tool, and you’ll finish your day in the garden with an ache. The same type of tools come in all sorts of different sizes—a stainless steel garden fork I inherited from my mother is a great tool, but not the one for me. The length of its handle was perfect for my 5-foot-4-inch mother, but I’m 5 feet 10 inches tall, and for me to use my mother’s fork requires an uncomfortable stoop.

If you are over the age of 50 (as I am) you’ve probably noticed that you are less muscular than you used to be—even if you have stayed active. That’s due to a condition known as sarcopenia that typically appears with the onset of middle age. Sarcopenia is a gradual decline in muscle mass caused by hormonal changes and a decline in your ability to synthesize protein and so grow new muscle tissue. Exercise and a healthy diet can slow this process but won’t stop it altogether. Which means that you (like me) are likely to find as you age that the tools that once suited you may become uncomfortably heavy.

For example, for 30 years my favorite digging implement was the full-strap nursery spade I bought from A.M. Leonard, Inc., the mail-order (and now web-based) tool company that has been a stand-by of horticulturists since 1928. This spade has a heavy, forged, alloy steel blade from which broad steel straps extend up the full length of the front and back of the 27-inch ash wood handle. This makes the spade virtually unbreakable; if you sharpen the bottom edge of its blade, it will, when propelled with sufficient force, slice through the thickest tree root or the hardest of hardpan subsoils. But this spade weighs a full 7 pounds, and I find it exhausting to wield for very long these days—and likely to provoke my tennis elbow. Recently, I’ve been finding much more compatible what used to be the second string, my English-made Spear & Jackson spade, a solid but less formidable tool that weighs in at 5 pounds, 3 ounces.

A.M. Leonard offers a number of lightweight tools, such as lopping shears with aluminum alloy handles, that are better suited to middle-aged or senior gardeners. It also sells long-handled spades that offer superior leverage to the traditional short-handled models and so are easier on the back.

Walt Nicke’s Garden Talk is another great source of lightweight and ergonomic tools.

Whether young or old, however, you should take your time when shopping for garden tools. Look around, check a few different sources to see what is available before you pull out the cash or credit card. The gardener who waits until the yard is covered with fallen leaves then rushes down to the nearest hardware store to grab whatever rake comes to hand is going to pay a high price in more ways than one. Let this sort of procrastination become a habit, and you’ll fill your tool shed with a mismatched menagerie of stopgaps. That’s a sure recipe for gardening misery and unsustainable labor.