Looking for a garden tool...

[Gooserider]

I have been helping a friend a lot with his wood business, and now with his garden, in which he grows large volumes of tomatoes... He has one of the neatest tools I have ever seen for dealing with weeds, and I am trying to find a source to get one of my own...

He calls it a "Shove hoe"

On another forum, a person had a page from a 19th century farm tools catalog that looked like it, called an "Arlington slide hoe"

I've also found apparent references that the tool might also be called a "Scuffle hoe", "Dutch hoe" "slide hoe", etc...

I'm attaching a bunch of pictures of his - he thinks his was made by a blacksmith, but isn't sure, as it's been in his family for a couple generations at least...

Any pointers to sources (new or used) would be much appreciated...

 

[Wood Heat Stoves]

groworganic.com
http://www.groworganic.com/item_GO206_Glaser_5_Stirrup_Hoe_Head.html
stirrup hoe

http://www.groworganic.com/item_GCU210_Glaser_Professional_Wheel_Hoe.html
wheel hoe

i order from these guys, very sharp and professional

 

[SolarAndWood]

I've used the tool that is essentially the blade closest to the handle. What does the second one accomplish?

 

[Wood Heat Stoves]

a wheel hoe is the big bro to the stirrup hoe. not for tight spaces, but really saves your back, and does easily 10 times the "hoeing" as hand held models
also costs 10 times as much, lol

 

[Gooserider]

I've used the tool that is essentially the blade closest to the handle. What does the second one accomplish?

The stirrup style hoe is what all sorts of places are selling - I could get one from many sources with little effort, but I want the original style I pictured. The idea of the second blade is that it "floats" on top of the soil and regulates the depth of the cutting blade to about 1/4" or so... I see nothing in the stirrup hoe design to control the depth at which it operates, which to me is a fatal design flaw.

Use is essentially one-handed, simply push back and forth on the handle, while holding it at a height where both blades are level (one reason for the long handle is so that it will be high enough while keeping the push force at the right angle. By keeping the blade depth tightly controlled it is easy and safe to go right up to the plant and get the weeds next to it without disturbing it's roots. If you lift very slightly on the handle while pushing, the first blade can also push up a small mound of soil, which can be useful for hilling around the plants.

The wheel hoe WHS pointed at is actually sort of close, but I don't see any advantage to having a wheel instead of a blade, and the wheel would stick up more than the blade does, limiting it's use w/ low plants (not to mention the incredible price...)

Gooserider

 

[Dune]

Hey Goose, I am a blacksmith down on the Cape. I would be glad to make one for you. If you could borrow your freinds for an afternoon, we could make an exact duplicate. If not, I can make it from some careful sketches, and ship it to you. Either way, it
would be cool to meet you and shake your hand.

 

[Wood Heat Stoves]

the wheeled version alows you to apply so much more force to hard ground it is no comparison to hand held

like carrying dirt in a bucket vs wheel barrow

 

[Later]

In soft or moderate clay soil I hafe good luck with a shuffle hoe. The first one I bought was a "as seen on TV" Hula Hoe. It worked well too. My latest one is made by Union.

 

[Gooserider]

Hey Goose, I am a blacksmith down on the Cape. I would be glad to make one for you. If you could borrow your freinds for an afternoon, we could make an exact duplicate. If not, I can make it from some careful sketches, and ship it to you. Either way, it
would be cool to meet you and shake your hand.

That sounds like a really good idea at this point, long as the price were right, from the pictures would you be able to make a ballpark estimate? I would have to work out details of how we could get together, and see if I can borrow my friend's original. Probably the best sort of thing to do in Private messages or e-mail...


WHS, It is probably quite true that you could put more force into hard ground with the wheel hoe, but it seems to me like that is addressing the wrong problem... If the ground is hard, you have issues other than weeds that need to be adressed, like proper soil composition and preparation before planting. The shove hoe that I'm looking for isn't intended for that purpose, but rather just to do weeding after planting - in very loose soil (Actually in my garden, 100% compost)

Gooserider

 

[rowerwet]

I got something similar from my grandmother, I thought it would be a gimmick, but it works so well I don't borrow a rototiller for my garden now (small garden). It looks like the picture only instead of the front blade it has star shapped tines that roll and break up the clods. the stirrup on the back can pivot a few degrees to change the angle and help you dig in when you want to dig deeper, it is made by burpee and like I said before I use it to till the ground in my garden. The rolling tines also tend to pull rocks and clumps of roots to the surface and throw them ahead, something about the shape.

 

[Gooserider]

I need to make and post some more pictures of it, but my friend has another one of these shove hoes that he has let me borrow, that is much narrower, only about 4" wide - works good on my tighter spaced plants. I'm actually thinking now that I may try making something myself - I've done a bit of metal working, and I do have a nice Mig welder...

Gooserider

 

[HMT80]

GooseRider,

I was wondering if you ever did find this tool? I was just at a garden tour at, I presume, the same gentleman's home this evening with a local garden club. The tools he has are amazing, as is the way the tomatoes are trellised, we never quite know what to do with ours... I decided to look up the shove hoe to see if I could find it and this came up.

Apologies for bringing up such an old post!

Thank you!

 

[mayhem]

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this tool. From the descriptions it seems to be intended for weeding, but near as I can figure all it does is cut the weed off at the ground level, which is utterly worthless since they'll just reshoot from the still living tap root.

Seems a bit too obvious a flaw, so what am I missing here?

 

[billb3]

We had one very similar to that many moons ago - it cuts everything off about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch below the surface. The largest majority of garden weeds do not survive it.
Actually does a better job than a regular hoe because a regular hoe only transplants a percentage of weeds.

I prefer lots of oak leaves for mulch myself.
Course, I have plenty of oak leaves.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Mayhem- it's an accepted method for knocking down weeds to do light cultivation.

I'm a bit too lazy, so I just mulch heavily with shredded leaves. I never till in the garden- I find it counterproductive.

 

[rowerwet]

I just dump all the grass clippings on my garden, so far I haven't needed to water even though it has been a dry summer, due to the 6-8" of mulch, and no weeds once the mulch is deep enough.
here is the closest thing for sale I could find http://www.amazon.com/Flexrake-Hula-Ho-Weeder/dp/B000A15GQ2
the picture is the one I got from my grandmother, it is made by Burpee, and the head is removable from the handle by pushing a button, the only info on the head is a sticker that says W. Germany, so it was sold a while ago.

 

[BucksCoBernie]

Nice Hoe!

This design is the best IMO....it leaves the dirt in place unlike the traditional hoe design.

 

[Gooserider]

GooseRider,

I was wondering if you ever did find this tool? I was just at a garden tour at, I presume, the same gentleman's home this evening with a local garden club. The tools he has are amazing, as is the way the tomatoes are trellised, we never quite know what to do with ours... I decided to look up the shove hoe to see if I could find it and this came up.

Apologies for bringing up such an old post!

Thank you!

Never did find one, but I did have a couple offers to try making one (It probably wouldn't be that hard, other than trying to figure out the right angles, as the actual design is pretty simple, not like that rotary star item that rowerwet was pointing at)

I've pretty much given up on it though, especially since my injury - I'm not sure it would actually work for me between being in the chair, the lower height that I do my trellising at, and the raised beds I'm using. It worked great for my friend and his garden setup, but mine is enough different for a long handled tool of any sort not to work very well. This year I've mostly just been working on the basis of pulling the big weeds that I can reach, and not worrying about the rest. It seems to be working OK, as I'm getting pretty good yields from most of my plants.

As to how it works, Mayhem is right, it does mostly just cut the weeds off at just below ground level IF they have solid roots, but anything with small roots will get pulled up - this kills small weeds pretty effectively, and slows the big ones down quite a bit, and most importantly it effectively hits ALL the weeds including the ones that are so young you can barely see them. The weeds then compost in place and give their nutrients back to the soil. You will have to use the shove hoe fairly often during weed season, just as you would need to regularly use ANY manual cultivation tool. The shove hoe's advantage lies in it's speed and ease of use, along with the ability to work right up next to the stem of the good plants - but nothing is going to get rid of the need to regularly work the garden every week or two...

Gooserider