For the final entry in our “workhorses of our gardens” series, we’re going to talk about weeding. Probably the least favorite thing of every gardener, it takes a trifecta of workhorses since we can’t narrow it down to just one.
Our primary and most favorite weeding tool is called the loop hoe. This tool isn’t super common to see in various tool kits, but it’s one of the more effective ways of dispatching those weeds. The purpose of this tool is to drag it along the ground or your beds and cut the weeds straight off. It’s small enough that it can get into the tightest nooks and crannies and light enough that it doesn’t wear you out. We use this to maintain our garden’s walkways, but it also helps in edging, gravel driveways and many other places.
The second tool of the trifecta is our dandelion remover. It probably has a more official name, but we call it what it does for us. This handheld prong is great at getting deep into the dirt and giving us leverage against those deep rooting weeds like dandelions. The prong gives us a little grip on the root and with a little lever action, those pesky weeds come right out. The problem with those deep rooting weeds is unless you remove the entire root, the plant can come back with a vengeance. We keep this one in the tool bag at all times and it regularly sees action.
And lastly, we do like our power tools around here and sometimes, they’re the right tool for the job. The weed eater (aka string trimmer) is an indispensable tool around both our gardens and homestead. The weed eater makes fast work out of a lot of weeds, so it’s the tool we use when we are managing untamed lands. Sure, it doesn’t get rid of them “for good,” but we learned long ago that weeding is a losing battle and sometimes its best to just have the upper hand. Our favorite type of trimmer is a straight extension with a solid 2 stroke engine. If you’ve got a small property or garden, those electric models are hard to beat!
With these three tools, we’re able to keep those weeds at bay. They fit different roles and all of them beat pulling weeds by hand! Weed management is an essential thing for the gardener to do, so hopefully offering a little bit of insight into the tools we use to do it helps you.
Yeah, we know we picked six tools for our favorite, top three workhorse tools. I guess you can sue us? We hope that you enjoyed this little mini-series. We try to hit all aspects of gardening, which means sometimes we’re talking about things other than our actual gardens!
