Scope: hand-operated, non-powered garden tools for digging/turning soil (spade, shovel, garden fork), surface work (hoe, cultivator), raking, precision planting (trowel), and manual cutting (secateurs, loppers, hand hedge shears). Engine- or battery-powered equipment (mowers, powered hedge trimmers, tillers) is out of scope.

Seed: field-biologist equivalent to "harvest date" would be head-to-handle joint construction (forged one-piece vs riveted socket) — rarely listed, ranked high by experts for durability. No source in the fetched set confirmed joint-construction terms, so it was dropped rather than invented; the closest surviving analog is ratchet_or_gear_assist, which experts value but which is buried in description text, not a structured field, on most listings.
The biologist persona (what survives abuse in rain) shaped primary_material_steel_grade and handle_material: carbon steel sharpens best but rusts unoiled, stainless/chromium survive rain with less care; wood handles are light with some give, fiberglass/metal shrug off weather and rough use.

Sources:
[wikipedia_garden_tool] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_tool — hand vs power tool split, tool list — fetched excerpt
[wikipedia_spade] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spade — tread, border spade, sharpshooter — fetched excerpt
[wikipedia_garden_fork] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_fork — tines, steel, D/T grip — fetched excerpt
[wikipedia_hoe] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoe_(tool) — draw vs scuffle/stirrup hoe action — fetched excerpt
[wikipedia_rake] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rake_(tool) — leaf/garden/bow rake, tine/handle materials — fetched excerpt
[wikipedia_pruning_shears] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruning_shears — bypass/anvil/parrot-beak, ratchet — fetched excerpt
[wikipedia_loppers] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loppers — two-hand leverage, ~2in capacity, gear/ratchet — fetched excerpt
[wikipedia_trowel] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trowel — garden vs camping trowel blade profile — fetched excerpt
[wikipedia_hedge_trimmer] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_trimmer — manual hedge shears are large scissors/pruning shears — fetched excerpt
[gardenmyths_anvil_bypass] https://www.gardenmyths.com/anvil-bypass-secateurs-pruners/ — anvil crushes tissue, bypass cleaner on live wood — fetched excerpt
[wolfonline_anvil_bypass] https://wolfonline.co.uk/blogs/ideas-inspiration/anvil-vs-bypass-secateurs-which-should-you-choose-for-your-garden — anvil marketed for deadwood/thick stems — fetched excerpt
[outdoorlife_loppers] https://www.outdoorlife.com/gear/best-loppers/ — tested lopper cutting capacity 1/4in–2.25in, Corona 2.25in/32.5in — fetched excerpt

Branches: tool_type → each value routes to that type's signature facet(s) (blade_shape+tread for spades, tines for forks, hoe action, rake type+material, trowel profile, cutting_tool_subtype for cutters); supported by each type's Wikipedia page defining the type's distinguishing attribute. cutting_tool_subtype (nested under tool_type=cutting_pruning_tool) → secateur/lopper/hedge_shear each ask blade_mechanism+capacity, lopper additionally asks ratchet/gear assist (wikipedia_loppers: "gear system, compound lever, or ratchet drive"); hedge_shear drops cutting_capacity_class since it shears foliage rather than a single stem (wikipedia_hedge_trimmer: "designed as large scissors").

Noise (spec-sheet rows seen but not made facets): exact cutting-capacity mm/cm thresholds for hand secateurs — only one source (wikipedia_pruning_shears) gave a number ("up to two centimetres"), no second source confirmed it, so cutting_capacity_class is a qualitative bucket rather than a sourced numeric range. Stirrup/hoop hoe blade width (8–18cm, wikipedia_hoe only) — same single-source reason, left as qualitative hoe_action_type instead of a numeric facet. Locking/safety catch on secateurs/loppers — no source in the fetched set discussed it, dropped. Blade hardness in HRC (54–58 HRC, wikipedia_pruning_shears only) — single-sourced number, omitted rather than stated as a range. No governing safety/performance standard found for hand garden tools (only an unrelated 2-stroke engine emissions standard for powered equipment, out of scope); coverage-test item 3 is satisfied by its absence.

Brand spec sheets: Felco, Fiskars, RHS, Corona, Gardener's World, and The Spruce pages returned 404s or bot-blocks on direct fetch (confirmed via curl -sIL and title checks); substituted with the Outdoor Life lopper review, which carries real tested brand cutting-capacity numbers (Corona, Fiskars) and corroborates the Wikipedia loppers figure.

Corrections (2026-10-26):
- Added `locking_mechanism` facet to the hand_pruner_secateur and lopper legs: Good Housekeeping's pruning-shears buying guide states "all pruning shears should have some sort of lock... for safety reasons," which contradicts this file's earlier Noise-section reason for dropping it ("no source discussed it"). Single-sourced — WebSearch budget was exhausted this session and wikihow/RHS/familyhandyman/thisoldhouse/acehardware fetches returned bot-challenges or 404s, so a second independent source could not be found; flagging rather than inventing one.
- Added `blade_anti_stick_coating` facet to the hand_pruner_secateur and lopper legs for the sap-groove/non-stick-coating axis recurring across Good Housekeeping's reviewed pruners (self-cleaning sap groove, titanium-coated blades); corroborated by wikipedia_pruning_shears' own passage on titanium-coated blades, already cited in this file.
- Rewrote 5 cold_start_question strings that omitted one of their own facet's values: blade_shape (added sharpshooter), hoe_action_type (separated stirrup from scuffle), rake_type_and_tine_form (added landscaping rake), primary_material_steel_grade (added chromium), handle_material (added bamboo).
- Re-marked `tread_shoulders` and `handle_grip_shape` from source: listing to researched — both rely on reading a product photo or description, not a field present on most listings.
- `cutting_capacity_class`'s thin_stems_under_1cm boundary (1cm) remains an unsourced interpretive midpoint sitting between the two sourced bounds (2cm, 5cm); no source in the fetched set states a 1cm figure, so it is flagged here as an estimate rather than given an invented citation.
- Removed the unconfirmed "32.5-inch handles" clause from outdoorlife_loppers' supports line; only the 2.25-inch max cut diameter was found in the fetched page text.
- Added a "Sharpshooter" vocabulary entry (used in blade_shape but previously undefined), since the cold_start_question rewrite now surfaces the term directly.