I mention this because I so frequently see pictures of backyard fruit trees competing with grass right up to the trunk.
A lot of people don’t seem to know how to keep a good weed free zone under their fruit trees. They don’t want to use herbicides and seem to struggle how to attack the problem.
Nowadays, I think there are a lot of people who really don’t know how to properly use a garden hoe.
We just put in 1300 new blackberry plants. I want the plants to send up lots of suckers to fill in the area, so didn’t want to put down landscape fabric or plastic. They are young plants so we have to be very careful with herbicides.
So I hoe some rows for an hour or two every now and then. I find it very relaxing. I did kill the grass/weeds originally with herbicides. And did put a pre-emergent down. But weeds want to grow on bare ground, so they are coming up.
A lot of people think you chop weeds with a hoe. But that’s not the way to use the tool. You scrape the ground with the hoe, scratching the weeds off. The weed will come up again, but much weaker each time you scratch it off.
I find the best/easiest time to hoe is right after a rain. The soil is looser and easier to bite the base of weeds to scratch them off. It also enables the hoe to go into the soil a little bit for some very light tillage.
I think if I had just a few fruit trees in my backyard, I wouldn’t use any herbicides, but just hoe underneath them.
It won’t work if you have a solid matte of sod. That has to be killed out first, but if one keeps up with hoeing, it doesn’t take long to hoe a pretty large area. If you get behind and the weeds get big, it becomes much much harder to “catch up” and get the weeds back down.
Good info and advice!
The need for recurring treatment (hoeing) and the description of how the weeds get weaker makes me think of my Weed Dragon torch. Basically the same scenario. You have to keep at it, but it works.
Of course it’s got more risks than hoeing such as burning desirable plants or starting forest fires.
Once I was torching in the evening and working around an old stump.
The next day I smelled smoke and upon inspection I found the stump was reduced to a pile of ashes. It had smoldered all night.
Very glad that didn’t spread … yikes.
Needless to say it’s best to torch after a good rain and/or to hose-down the area to douse any embers.
But I’m a big fan of my weed dragon.
I tried a hoe and it was too slow. Then ma’woman showed me how to use a claw hoe. Much faster and easier. This is obviously an untapped market for an affordable robotic tree weeder…lol
I guess each person likes what they use. I’ve used forks and claws. They are too much work for me. The beauty of a hoe is it just rakes across the top. You aren’t really digging with it. So it takes very little effort to cover a lot of ground. About the same effort as raking leaves.
But this discussion probably has about as much potential for agreement as debating over your favorite sports team, or favorite beer.
The function was much better for opening a trench and planting daffodil bulbs than the garden mattock I had been using, but weeding with it has been equally good, and I’ve used it for other planting purposes.
That tool has been used for weeding as well, I just don’t know that I would ever recommend someone buy it. I really liked the light weight and easy workability of the Warren hoe.
and four tine (straight)
cultivators that I’ve used for weeding. These days they are relegated to moving wood chips and cleaning out debris from creeks. Using a larger, hooked three tine one at a friend’s house a few weeks ago I see the usefulness for garden soil that is frequently worked, just like theirs is.
Agreed, and I’ll usually scuffle mine back and forth when using it.
Are you strictly looking for a used one of the winged hoes? I could post the website that has all sorts listed, such as this one:
I’ve ordered a good amount of “old European quality” garden/farm tools from them, and they aren’t as expensive as the place in Pennsylvania that everyone knows about.
I would never think to use a regular hoe for weed removal, but a “stirrup hoe or hula-hoe” is a wonderful tool for weed removal.
Used to chat up a 25yr career arboretum landscaper all the time and we got to talking about weed removal tools. She said their crew had tried basically every tool available, and most of them preferred a sharp “scuffle hoe” over all the other styles. Her preference was to the narrower version vs the “winged” one, like on the right side of this pic:
They’re harder to find I guess, I’ve never seen one at a store before. She said they get to buy their own tools and she was always looking for these, any time she’d find them she’d snatch them all up
Yes, not for a solid mat of grass but a stirrup hoe works very well for me. I do have sandy soil. I do sharpen it occasionally. It helps to start early in the season as new grass and weeds are first coming up.
I honestly only have an eighth of an acre, including the house and garage, so i’m happy to find tools second-hand. If you’d share the site I might add it to my list of things my kids can get me for presents…they seem to think I’m difficult to buy for…
Their hand tools page is a little challenging to navigate since most products are listed on a sub page corresponding to the manufacturer. Some of the tools that I’ve gotten are good, some are just “meh” so please don’t just assume that they are all winners. https://www.earthtools.com/garden-tools/
Oh, and there’s a large hardware store in my area that actually carries some of the DeWit products, although it is mostly the shorter length for use when kneeling, so don’t be afraid to look in your area.
I have one of those, looks silly but does work on some things. I use it mainly for pulling young thistle plants out of the grass. Doesn’t really work on the other things I’d love it to be able to pull out: wild blackberry root crowns and volunteer privet saplings.
I should have clarified - That’s the closest pic to what she showed me in her Gator cart, but I didn’t take a pic. I’ve been trying to find one but never seen one in my online or in-store shopping. It was diamond-shaped, not a triangle, similar to a pointing trowel with a longer front edge. She preferred that version because it cut better on the pull stroke vs the one with a flat edge toward the handle. That round one looks like it would have similar benefits
My grandfather had one when I was a kid. Go for a walk, pull some weeds. No bending. Gets more important as you get older. So said no youngin…ever.
I have what’s called a push pull hoe. Triangular flat blade, similar to a lot of so called stirrup or scuffle hoes,wire weeders, etc except… I’ve used them all. Most left something lacking. The only one that exceeded my expectations was the push pull hoe. Be seated if you look it up.
That being said, I’d readily recommend it to anyone. If you can only have one hoe, this is it.
