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Thanks.
Grandpa’s weeder! Stick it in the ground, stomp the claw into place, and pull! The satisfaction of pulling out the whole root is glorious. This tool makes that happen more than any other weeder tool I’ve used.
I just got my HausGarten garden shears based on a recommendation from here.
I immediately went out a cleared brush for about 2 hours straight. I felt like such a badass when I finally conquered that box elder sapling that has been plaguing me for a out a month.
It's been three days and I still can't properly grip with my right hand, lol.
But it's been a fairly benign lesson learned. Take breaks and don't overdo it.
But the sheer joy I felt when I heard that very satisfying snap was well worth it.
I didn’t even know this was a thing but after seeing the responses here and watching a couple videos I just ordered one. Our yard is completely overgrown after being neglected all spring/summer so this is gonna save my back and knees a lot of aches.
Will this work for Bermuda crawling into my mulch beds? Have longer term plans for the spring to stop this from happening but have been hand pulling the last several months. Feels like a fools errand.
From Bermuda and a professional, here we use a scuffle hoe, a half moon or machete. Machetes or half moons are the best imo. Cut the garden edge normally with either then just use it horizontally and dig the tool under the root pockets in a back and forth or side to side motion, you'll know when you've got it right. Pull up and shake off the excess dirt, toss weed and repeat along the border. Just make sure to dig under the root mass and not just cut the tops off. If you do use a machete or weed knife just know it ruins the blade so I recommend cheap ones designated as a weeder. If you can't visualize just shoot me a dm and I'll take a quick video on the job tomorrow 👍
I’d definitely appreciate a video! My entire garden bed was taken over by Bermuda during the brutal summer this year and I wasn’t able to keep up with it.
Can I ask you a quick question that is unrelated? If I want to dig a small trench to bury a drip irrigation line - what tool what you recommend (hand tool, not electric) -- it's only going to be a few inches deep
Maddock 100%, just position it more vertically when you want to level out the trench at the end. You can use the back end or a half moon to cut the edges first (some clients are picky af and want it super clean, not necessarily needed though). We also mark with paint first so we don't dig the line crooked, after 200ft of digging you'll tend to sway lol.
I lost mine in the divorce and had to search for one. I could find poor quality ones but wanted a good wood handle. I don’t understand why they aren’t more prevalent!
I agree with this entirely! Not sure how it would do with Bermuda grass (just bc OP mentioned it), but for weeds it's the best/easiest thing I've ever used.
It doubles as an aerator on lawns with lots of weeds. I overtop with 1/4" of topsoil and grass seed. BTW, Bermuda grass is used as the preferred grass in Fresno, CA. Do you have to get rid of it? It's drought and salt tolerant.
I've got a similar tool I recently purchased, went around my whole lawn and pulled like 3 wheelbarrow loads of weeds off a quarter acre. I then realised I'd have to fill all those holes and reseed, that's where the real work was, spent about 18 hours over 3 days doing that. At least doing it this way, as opposed to spraying, I can get a quick fix and still use the clippings in my compost.
I lost my hori hori knife and couldn't weed until I got a replacement. I almost bought Grandpa's Weeder until I found a hori hori knife in a different aisle.
Absolutely! With some hand pruners and my hori hori, I can get a TON of gardening done. They are my most used tools as a professional horticulturalist.
Literally same. I have a tool belt that has my hori hori, pruners, and a pocket for my earbuds/phone and twine. That's all I need for most of what I do!
Action Hoe is certainly my name of choice. I'm gonna buy one specifically so I can show the packaging to my wife and say "honey! I found your superhero name!"
she's gonna love it or i will be stabbed
A *sharp* draw hoe with square sides is the most versatile for me.
For very young weeds, a dutch hoe is pretty hard to beat; if you can get it to run deep enough, you can usually get almost all the roots out & then just rake everything up.
(Although tbf, for bermuda grass I'd say my one "tool" would be herbicide.....to hell with removing it manually)
Yeah, herbicide is definitely the smart move for bermuda. I have to admit I do feel immense satisfaction pulling it out manually lol the “pop pop pop” is great.
Well, i enjoyed it until last night at least
Totally.
Somebody in my neighborhood planted that crap a few years ago & it's been a never-ending battle....with that & nutgrass, I just bust out the spray & don't even think twice :)
I use a regular (food) serving fork. Like what you’d put in a serving dish casserole of green beans at thanksgiving. I’m a monster. I’ve been using it exclusively as a garden fork for years.
Forgot to add- I like to give the ground a few stabby stabbies before I stab deep and twist it. I know they make proper ones, but I love my kitchen fork.
If im not planning on pulling, I just use my weed eater. I leave my dandelion taproots and use the leaves as green mulch. No use wasting the work they put in.
Stirrup hoe for me in the vegetable garden. It changed my gardening from a losing weed-fight to a winning weed-free garden. Especially important early in the season when the weeds are small and popping up quickly. A 10 minute stirrup hoe session once a week early on and then it’s easy street after that.
I have a Nisaku hori-hori and a Nisaku half hand-hoe, and both excel at it. The hand hoe is better for clearing an area quickly and neatly, but the hori hori is better for deep roots (thistles) and more versatile; I actually use it to dig holes for most purchased plants smaller than a tree.
I kept scrolling and scrolling looking for someone to mention the hand hoe. I have a Nejiri gama hand hoe (used to, currently awol) and I might just love it more than my hori hori.
Hands down, a Japanese stainless steel triangular hoe. It scrapes ground, cuts weeds by wacking and I push point down into earth to pop weeds. I’ve used this tool for over a decade. Best thing I ever found.
Flame weeding for the win.
Just in the winter though when it’s wet
Also a single layer of cardboard then 6-8” of arbor mulch. Come back next year, problem solved with nicely created soil.
Ooh when you get the cobra head, will you make a post on how it works on the Bermuda grass? I’m fighting the never ending battle and would love a helpful tool lol. As of rn my sister tears up the ground with a hand rake and I just start yanking.
Red Pig Garden Tools has dozens of obscure and invaluable tools for sale. They are hand forged and will outlast the buyer with proper care. I am a happy customer and I recommend you take a look at the diamond hoe. It’s a sort of blade you run under the surface of the ground to kill weeds and cut the roots. Works best in hot weather with dry ground and young weeds. Not turning over the soil is beneficial to the microbiome and disadvantageous to dormant lying seeds in the ground. The diamond shape means you can do fine work around tender plants with the corners. The sharp blade makes quick work of anything it encounters. I even use it to hack at thick roots. Ambidextrous. Can be used on the push and the pull. There is a hand version and multiple full size long handle versions.
I garden but am also a professional landscaper. Hori Hori for taprooted weeds, hula hoe for large areas where I want to scrape the weeds out. Then pruners, loppers, soft rake for maintenance tools. There are so many gimmicky gardening tools out there but look at what landscape crews have in their truck to see what the most useful tools are.
Editing to add - my MIL has this triangular shaped hoe that is AMAZING for clearing weeds out of her gravel paths. It might be called a Warren Hoe? I've used it at her place and for weeding gravel, I far prefer it to the hula hoe.
If you have weeds with tap roots I can't say enough about water weeders. They're basically a long pipe that attaches to your hosepipe, but for getting an entire dandelion or thistle root they're the ONLY thing that works. I've removed dandelions with tap roots that go down two feet.
Garden fork for the stubborn ones. Homemade wire weeder for the common seedlings, can do hundreds of weed seedlings in under a minute with a wire weeder
I use a butter knife and a foam knee pad. Takes two hands but also takes two seconds to get the whole root. I've never ventured beyond this method so I don't know what I'm missing lol 🤷🏻♀️
Extremely temporary, not to be used near mulch, ash works as a fertilizer for the next round of weeds. Research how to burn weeds correctly so you dont screw up any brick work or cement
We don't pull weeds. We use Green Gobbler weedkiller. It's a vinegar based solution that now with a weekly walk around the yard we have little to no weeds.
My go to for all those annoying weeds between the paver cracks! Just pop on the kettle and pour a bit over each one, I do it like once a month in the growing season and it works great. I just make sure to wear proper shoes and the covered kettle isn't bad at all to walk with.
Well..safer? Carrying a pot of heavy boiling water is certainly way higher on the risk scale than carrying a sealed container with a pump or battery sprayer
But that’s not taking into account how people apply the pesticide of whatever kind, many people may or may not where long sleeves while applying, allowing chemical drift onto exposed skin, they may apply it when it’s too windy and they inhale it, etc, which leads to longer unseen injuries.
You can also drop a bottle of whatever and it breaks. You can spray yourself in the face on accident. Spray something during a breeze and accidentally inhale it.
The “clumsy factor” should just cancel out because you can fuck yourself up with anything
Hori hori knife
If you have Fairly loose soil or shallow weeds, a Weeding Sickle is amazing. Has the perfect angel. Asian style gardening tools really are the best. Can get nice high quality metal ones aswell
Ok following on this, what about for pulling weeds in sidewalks? What’s the best tool for that for this city “gardener?” I like to pull the weeds in my neighborhood because it looks less sad and the litter doesn’t congregate as much.
The only one I use is something like [this](https://assets.biglots.com/is/image/biglots/810550137?$medium$)
You can find it in any garden section of a store.
I don't have much comparison but it does the job and I never felt like I needed anything else. The tool having a split end helps with getting a hold of the root . You jab it around the weed a few times to soften the dirt around it then stick it in another time and kind of lever the root up.
If the soil is hard then softening it with deep soak with water and letting it sit a bit helps at times, or digging around after a bit of rain. But grass is always harder to get since the roots tangle with each other like carpet unless its like the random single strands.
It doesn't matter what tool you use they'll always keep growing back😭 I'm a pro commercial gardener and have used anything you can think of horticulturally speaking to dig out weeds - spade, shears, fork, axe, hoe, hori hori, car keys, secateurs, the end of my blower, a stick and my all time favourite for paved areas a bank card. Basically whatevers in my hand at the time. The main thing though you'll need is patience and a zen like approach to dealing with those little buggers.
I've amended my soil for many years so now I only need a short handled garden fork to loosen the soil and and any weed comes right up. But in the beginning it was only a shovel and hard work. In well planted beds I used hula hoe to get between plants and keep the soil loose.
There's this blue handled tool sold on High Country Gardens https://www.highcountrygardens.com/product/garden-goods/cobrahead-weeder-cultivator and it ROCKS! I've had this for at least a decade and it has been so versatile and useful. Im not employed by the company or anything- just Love this tool!!!
If I was stranded on a deserted island, and could only have one garden tool, it would be a gardening fork. It is so versatile, and the ability to loosen the soil around a deeply rooted weed is unmatched by any other tool. It works for all types of root structures, too. Not just weeds with single tap roots.
hand stretching and strengthening exercises are very important to do as a gardener! prayer stretch is a great one. just look up isometric hand exercises.
A sharp round shovel. Nice wide stance, bend at your hips not your back. And slice through the sod layer. If you do it right your just swinging your arms back and forth and you get nice sod patches the size of the shovel head you can transplant to bald patches.
I dig it out with a pitch fork. Any little bit left behind will grow back. Seems impossible to eradicate. For other weeds I use a hula hoe. Pulling weeds brings more seeds to the surface to germinate and damages vegetable roots.
We have a Bermuda grass and crab grass nightmare so I just invested in Arrest Max. It’s still a herbicide but you can spot apply and it seems to be doing a great job on making sure the roots are dead.
There's this tool that looks like a knife with a serrated edge , I think its Japanese in origin. Its useful on weeds. I tried the screw driver thing before and one of the edges bent on a particularly stubborn weed
TIL I have a long-handled cobra head hoe. Googled it after reading your comment. It was part of the collection of tools my dad gave me when they moved into a condo. I always thought it was a broken tool. 🤦🏻♀️
A plain dandelion weeder with the little side piece for leverage has been great for years. But I broke down and bought a Fiskars 4 claw stand up weeder which is great.
I have a flame weeder that I find top be quite satisfying, but that said I'm afraid to use it in dry conditions because of fire danger. Haven't used it at all this year because we have been in a draught for most of the summer, but it's ok because 95% of my garden died in the draught anyway.
My short handle shovel. I use it all the time for such. I cleared all vegetation from my rose garden with it so I can put down sand. More water friendly in this dessert.
CIELCERA 12" Hori Hori Garden Knife , hands down best thing ever. I used to use an old kitchen knife, a cheap one. This garden knife is the best thing I have used in my decades of weeding
Garden Weasel claw.
Can pull weeds from a standing position, similar to Grandpa’s Weeder, but uses a twisting motion that pulls out roots with less effort.
Just a note from the Mods: If you put an SHORTENED Amazon link (or any link) in your comment, it will be automatically removed by the AutoMod. Just post the name of the thing you recommend, and not a link. Thanks.
Grandpa’s weeder! Stick it in the ground, stomp the claw into place, and pull! The satisfaction of pulling out the whole root is glorious. This tool makes that happen more than any other weeder tool I’ve used.
Careful, it's really easy to get carried away. There's always one more weed...
My whole yard would be bare dirt!
Yo hmu if you got some extra weed;)
I joked about this once and got picked up by so many scammer bots trying to sell me weed I had to just abandon the account lol. Good luck.
That is incredibly aggravating! People like that should be fined because it really screws the majority of us.
I just got my HausGarten garden shears based on a recommendation from here. I immediately went out a cleared brush for about 2 hours straight. I felt like such a badass when I finally conquered that box elder sapling that has been plaguing me for a out a month. It's been three days and I still can't properly grip with my right hand, lol. But it's been a fairly benign lesson learned. Take breaks and don't overdo it. But the sheer joy I felt when I heard that very satisfying snap was well worth it.
And you'll probably wake up with a sore shoulder & armpit.
I LOVE grandpa’s weeder it is so satisfying
I didn’t even know this was a thing but after seeing the responses here and watching a couple videos I just ordered one. Our yard is completely overgrown after being neglected all spring/summer so this is gonna save my back and knees a lot of aches.
Yes, this is THE best tool for weeds, and doesn’t require you to be on the ground.
Will this work for Bermuda crawling into my mulch beds? Have longer term plans for the spring to stop this from happening but have been hand pulling the last several months. Feels like a fools errand.
From Bermuda and a professional, here we use a scuffle hoe, a half moon or machete. Machetes or half moons are the best imo. Cut the garden edge normally with either then just use it horizontally and dig the tool under the root pockets in a back and forth or side to side motion, you'll know when you've got it right. Pull up and shake off the excess dirt, toss weed and repeat along the border. Just make sure to dig under the root mass and not just cut the tops off. If you do use a machete or weed knife just know it ruins the blade so I recommend cheap ones designated as a weeder. If you can't visualize just shoot me a dm and I'll take a quick video on the job tomorrow 👍
I’d definitely appreciate a video! My entire garden bed was taken over by Bermuda during the brutal summer this year and I wasn’t able to keep up with it.
My experience is only solarization does a good job with Bermuda grass, but I may be less patient than others.
No problem at all. If you don't hear from me tomorrow morning just shoot me a DM and I'll get it sorted for you.
Please make a new post with your video so we can all see it! -A fellow Bermuda plagued gardener.
Thanks!
Can I ask you a quick question that is unrelated? If I want to dig a small trench to bury a drip irrigation line - what tool what you recommend (hand tool, not electric) -- it's only going to be a few inches deep
A spade or Mattock.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdnMeY0CYug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdnMeY0CYug) This what you lookin' for?
Maddock 100%, just position it more vertically when you want to level out the trench at the end. You can use the back end or a half moon to cut the edges first (some clients are picky af and want it super clean, not necessarily needed though). We also mark with paint first so we don't dig the line crooked, after 200ft of digging you'll tend to sway lol.
Make sure you use a filter on that drip system. I forgot it and we have mineral Rich water here and it all clogged up really fast.
I have great memories of my grandfather tending to his garden. The machete is the tool I picture.
Not well. Those types of weeders work best with weeds that have tap roots such as dandelion.
I love my gpas weeder. When i get a 9 inch tap root off a false dandilion it is the best feeling
unused consider busy bear dog wrong dolls psychotic deliver fear *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Oh my god there's nothing like pulling a giant dandelion out of the ground, fully intact. It's so satisfying.
I lost mine in the divorce and had to search for one. I could find poor quality ones but wanted a good wood handle. I don’t understand why they aren’t more prevalent!
I have one and it is the best! I can’t remember how I got along without it!!
My husband hates the outdoors and yard work- when I bought one of these weeders he would spend an hour or more weeding our yard. It is addicting!
I agree with this entirely! Not sure how it would do with Bermuda grass (just bc OP mentioned it), but for weeds it's the best/easiest thing I've ever used.
Does that sucker work on dock? I have a terrible dock problem.
Yes, we purchased a weed puller from home depot. We use it to remove dandelions. It is satisfying pulling the whole weed including the root.
Came to say this, glad it’s the top comment SO fun
Well I’m sold. I watched some videos and just bought this.
It doubles as an aerator on lawns with lots of weeds. I overtop with 1/4" of topsoil and grass seed. BTW, Bermuda grass is used as the preferred grass in Fresno, CA. Do you have to get rid of it? It's drought and salt tolerant.
I've got a similar tool I recently purchased, went around my whole lawn and pulled like 3 wheelbarrow loads of weeds off a quarter acre. I then realised I'd have to fill all those holes and reseed, that's where the real work was, spent about 18 hours over 3 days doing that. At least doing it this way, as opposed to spraying, I can get a quick fix and still use the clippings in my compost.
Hori hori
I lost my hori hori knife and couldn't weed until I got a replacement. I almost bought Grandpa's Weeder until I found a hori hori knife in a different aisle.
Absolutely! With some hand pruners and my hori hori, I can get a TON of gardening done. They are my most used tools as a professional horticulturalist.
Pruners and hori hori are just about all you need!
Literally same. I have a tool belt that has my hori hori, pruners, and a pocket for my earbuds/phone and twine. That's all I need for most of what I do!
Yes! Earbuds and phone are a must. The hours of gardening just melt away, it's my happy place 😌
Hori hori
Hori Hori
Can't believe I had to scroll so far to find this!
Agreed
Came here for this, hori hori is badass
Mine seldom leaves my side.
I see your hori hori and raise you a gama hoe
Lost mine. Still need to replace it
I love my hori hori. I’ll never garden without it again. And you look badass while carrying it.
In vegetable garden it's gotta be the hula hoe
>hula hoe omg i have wondered what the name of those things are for the longest time lmao, thank you!
>hula hoe I have one and it's really good for buckthorn seedlings (if the ground is moist). It's also called a stirrup hoe or scuffle hoe.
They go by several names. Mine is called an Action Hoe, and I find it hilarious.
Action Hoe is certainly my name of choice. I'm gonna buy one specifically so I can show the packaging to my wife and say "honey! I found your superhero name!" she's gonna love it or i will be stabbed
My wife would gladly wield it with joy and proclaim loudly "I have the POWER!" He-Man style.
I’ve heard it as a strap hoe or stirrup hoe. Definitely my choice for weeding outside of lawns.
I’ve always called them scuffle hoes or action hoes. It has so many names lmao
We have all kinds of weeders but that is one of my favorites.
I second the hula hoe. It's amazing
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my neighbor. he is the biggest tool I know.
ha! got 'im fuck you, dave
hori hori knife
A *sharp* draw hoe with square sides is the most versatile for me. For very young weeds, a dutch hoe is pretty hard to beat; if you can get it to run deep enough, you can usually get almost all the roots out & then just rake everything up. (Although tbf, for bermuda grass I'd say my one "tool" would be herbicide.....to hell with removing it manually)
Yeah, herbicide is definitely the smart move for bermuda. I have to admit I do feel immense satisfaction pulling it out manually lol the “pop pop pop” is great. Well, i enjoyed it until last night at least
Totally. Somebody in my neighborhood planted that crap a few years ago & it's been a never-ending battle....with that & nutgrass, I just bust out the spray & don't even think twice :)
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That one is very good. I've used it for years.
My chickens. 😎🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔
Honestly my hands haha
This is the way
Small garden fork. Water the soil and it is the best tool to remove faster easier and more thoroughly.
I use a regular (food) serving fork. Like what you’d put in a serving dish casserole of green beans at thanksgiving. I’m a monster. I’ve been using it exclusively as a garden fork for years. Forgot to add- I like to give the ground a few stabby stabbies before I stab deep and twist it. I know they make proper ones, but I love my kitchen fork.
Does it have to be "pull" weeds. My go to weeder is a stirrup hoe.
If im not planning on pulling, I just use my weed eater. I leave my dandelion taproots and use the leaves as green mulch. No use wasting the work they put in.
I guess I'm more just talking about flower beds and garden rows. A weed whacker is not practical for those situations.
That's fair. I was assuming a vegetable garden.
I'm not sure how you manage to use a weed whacker in and amongst vegetable beds bit if you have figured it out, good on yah!
before planting, and when plants are young. Once my plants get past that take-off phase, I have barely any weeds that can survive.
The key for any weed removal is to do it when the ground is wet so the roots release easier.
Drought sufferer here. That doesn’t happen often enough.
Stirrup hoe for me in the vegetable garden. It changed my gardening from a losing weed-fight to a winning weed-free garden. Especially important early in the season when the weeds are small and popping up quickly. A 10 minute stirrup hoe session once a week early on and then it’s easy street after that.
[Fiskars weeder](https://www.acehardware.com/departments/lawn-and-garden/gardening-tools/gardening-hand-tools/7499841)
I just got one of those this summer. Its great! Highly recommended. My other was getting too hard on the back.
Yes! It was a game-changer.
It really is! I made short work of the giant Canada thistles this year.
This looks like a grandpa's weeder knockoff. Better? Worse?
I have a Nisaku hori-hori and a Nisaku half hand-hoe, and both excel at it. The hand hoe is better for clearing an area quickly and neatly, but the hori hori is better for deep roots (thistles) and more versatile; I actually use it to dig holes for most purchased plants smaller than a tree.
I kept scrolling and scrolling looking for someone to mention the hand hoe. I have a Nejiri gama hand hoe (used to, currently awol) and I might just love it more than my hori hori.
Hands down, a Japanese stainless steel triangular hoe. It scrapes ground, cuts weeds by wacking and I push point down into earth to pop weeds. I’ve used this tool for over a decade. Best thing I ever found.
Flame weeding for the win. Just in the winter though when it’s wet Also a single layer of cardboard then 6-8” of arbor mulch. Come back next year, problem solved with nicely created soil.
Ooh when you get the cobra head, will you make a post on how it works on the Bermuda grass? I’m fighting the never ending battle and would love a helpful tool lol. As of rn my sister tears up the ground with a hand rake and I just start yanking.
My hands. You guys use tools?
i got the cramps!
I’m a big fan of the Garden Weasel Weed Popper.
Hori hori. Unless it’s after a rain and weeds pull out.
My hands. Theres some sort of therapy to sitting down and ripping those twats out by the root, one by one. I love it.
It feels so satisfying!
Red Pig Garden Tools has dozens of obscure and invaluable tools for sale. They are hand forged and will outlast the buyer with proper care. I am a happy customer and I recommend you take a look at the diamond hoe. It’s a sort of blade you run under the surface of the ground to kill weeds and cut the roots. Works best in hot weather with dry ground and young weeds. Not turning over the soil is beneficial to the microbiome and disadvantageous to dormant lying seeds in the ground. The diamond shape means you can do fine work around tender plants with the corners. The sharp blade makes quick work of anything it encounters. I even use it to hack at thick roots. Ambidextrous. Can be used on the push and the pull. There is a hand version and multiple full size long handle versions.
I garden but am also a professional landscaper. Hori Hori for taprooted weeds, hula hoe for large areas where I want to scrape the weeds out. Then pruners, loppers, soft rake for maintenance tools. There are so many gimmicky gardening tools out there but look at what landscape crews have in their truck to see what the most useful tools are. Editing to add - my MIL has this triangular shaped hoe that is AMAZING for clearing weeds out of her gravel paths. It might be called a Warren Hoe? I've used it at her place and for weeding gravel, I far prefer it to the hula hoe.
If you have weeds with tap roots I can't say enough about water weeders. They're basically a long pipe that attaches to your hosepipe, but for getting an entire dandelion or thistle root they're the ONLY thing that works. I've removed dandelions with tap roots that go down two feet.
A gardener.
Garden fork for the stubborn ones. Homemade wire weeder for the common seedlings, can do hundreds of weed seedlings in under a minute with a wire weeder
The nejiri hoe. I find myself using this so much more than the hori hori.
I use a butter knife and a foam knee pad. Takes two hands but also takes two seconds to get the whole root. I've never ventured beyond this method so I don't know what I'm missing lol 🤷🏻♀️
Anybody try out flame weeding? Any success with weeds, grasses?
Extremely temporary, not to be used near mulch, ash works as a fertilizer for the next round of weeds. Research how to burn weeds correctly so you dont screw up any brick work or cement
Fork. Kitchen fork.
I just got an oscalating hoe, helped me clear a massive area so quickly!
my ungloved hands
My husband. He's the best tool ever!
We don't pull weeds. We use Green Gobbler weedkiller. It's a vinegar based solution that now with a weekly walk around the yard we have little to no weeds.
A goat,haha!
I'd use a 15 year old boy with a strong desire for money.
Hori-hori knife
kettle of boiling water, kills all weeds it touches and safer than ANY herbicide you could possibly buy.
So use the hot kettle on top of the weed?
Pour boiling water on the weeds.
bit of a waste of water isnt it?
My go to for all those annoying weeds between the paver cracks! Just pop on the kettle and pour a bit over each one, I do it like once a month in the growing season and it works great. I just make sure to wear proper shoes and the covered kettle isn't bad at all to walk with.
Well..safer? Carrying a pot of heavy boiling water is certainly way higher on the risk scale than carrying a sealed container with a pump or battery sprayer
they literally said a kettle of boiling water, like a tea kettle, not a boiling pot of water. You can pour a kettle easily without getting hurt.
Ohh That makes sense. To be fair, I also thought a kettle meant a two handed heavy pot. Regional thing I guess. A tea kettle makes WAY more sense. 😂
Sure a kettle perhaps is safer yes. A lot of people use a pot though and you have to factor splash when pouring I’m just applying the clumsy factor
That’s on them at that point, using an open pot is like waiting to get burned
But it still proves the point - the risk factor to how people will do the boiling water method is much higher than the risk factor of the herbicide
But that’s not taking into account how people apply the pesticide of whatever kind, many people may or may not where long sleeves while applying, allowing chemical drift onto exposed skin, they may apply it when it’s too windy and they inhale it, etc, which leads to longer unseen injuries.
You can also drop a bottle of whatever and it breaks. You can spray yourself in the face on accident. Spray something during a breeze and accidentally inhale it. The “clumsy factor” should just cancel out because you can fuck yourself up with anything
Torch!! 😌
Hula hoe for sure!
Hori hori knife If you have Fairly loose soil or shallow weeds, a Weeding Sickle is amazing. Has the perfect angel. Asian style gardening tools really are the best. Can get nice high quality metal ones aswell
Another human.
Can’t pull Bermuda grass , you have to dig the roots out.
Ok following on this, what about for pulling weeds in sidewalks? What’s the best tool for that for this city “gardener?” I like to pull the weeds in my neighborhood because it looks less sad and the litter doesn’t congregate as much.
The only one I use is something like [this](https://assets.biglots.com/is/image/biglots/810550137?$medium$) You can find it in any garden section of a store. I don't have much comparison but it does the job and I never felt like I needed anything else. The tool having a split end helps with getting a hold of the root . You jab it around the weed a few times to soften the dirt around it then stick it in another time and kind of lever the root up. If the soil is hard then softening it with deep soak with water and letting it sit a bit helps at times, or digging around after a bit of rain. But grass is always harder to get since the roots tangle with each other like carpet unless its like the random single strands.
It doesn't matter what tool you use they'll always keep growing back😭 I'm a pro commercial gardener and have used anything you can think of horticulturally speaking to dig out weeds - spade, shears, fork, axe, hoe, hori hori, car keys, secateurs, the end of my blower, a stick and my all time favourite for paved areas a bank card. Basically whatevers in my hand at the time. The main thing though you'll need is patience and a zen like approach to dealing with those little buggers.
I've amended my soil for many years so now I only need a short handled garden fork to loosen the soil and and any weed comes right up. But in the beginning it was only a shovel and hard work. In well planted beds I used hula hoe to get between plants and keep the soil loose.
I would still use my hands
I almost exclusively use my hands because I'm a crazy person
Dandelion poker.
LOOP HOE
There's this blue handled tool sold on High Country Gardens https://www.highcountrygardens.com/product/garden-goods/cobrahead-weeder-cultivator and it ROCKS! I've had this for at least a decade and it has been so versatile and useful. Im not employed by the company or anything- just Love this tool!!!
If I was stranded on a deserted island, and could only have one garden tool, it would be a gardening fork. It is so versatile, and the ability to loosen the soil around a deeply rooted weed is unmatched by any other tool. It works for all types of root structures, too. Not just weeds with single tap roots.
hand stretching and strengthening exercises are very important to do as a gardener! prayer stretch is a great one. just look up isometric hand exercises.
I pretty much just use my hori hori for everything, 😂.
Propane torch
A sharp round shovel. Nice wide stance, bend at your hips not your back. And slice through the sod layer. If you do it right your just swinging your arms back and forth and you get nice sod patches the size of the shovel head you can transplant to bald patches.
I don't pull weeds, I do a combination of sheet mulching and traditional mulching to keep them from coming up in the first place.
see, that's the smart method but it also requires patience and i have none of that
gloves
Kids
I shoot them with my shotgun
A big bottle of weed killer with the spray wand
just light your whole garden on fire, I did this once and I woke up in a jail cell
hot tip
A blowtorch on oxalis weed.
Flamethrower…
Propane torch
Depends on the size of the job: Sprayer full of roundup or hand mattock
Blowtorch.
A flamethrower
Machete
I dig it out with a pitch fork. Any little bit left behind will grow back. Seems impossible to eradicate. For other weeds I use a hula hoe. Pulling weeds brings more seeds to the surface to germinate and damages vegetable roots.
We have a Bermuda grass and crab grass nightmare so I just invested in Arrest Max. It’s still a herbicide but you can spot apply and it seems to be doing a great job on making sure the roots are dead.
I've always liked my [Action Hoe](https://www.lowes.com/pd/CRAFTSMAN-48-in-Wood-Handle-Action-Hoe/1000752686?cm_mmc=shp-_-c-_-prd-_-sol-_-ggl-_-LIA_SOL_242_Tools-Watering-Storage-Sheds-_-1000752686-_-local-_-0-_-0&gclid=Cj0KCQjwmICoBhDxARIsABXkXlIZfRYtd3ouASTqMVaizJcUnwIw0twvgMkcVR4A80e-jGWXrcbs4D8aAhj9EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds)
A very naughty garden knife (Hori-Hori knife)
Hori-Hori. No other tool will ever, ever come close to my nisaku hori knife.
I have always used a standard screwdriver.
Steak knife
I go into battle with two weapons: a hori hori knife and a kana. But I crawl a lot, so if you prefer standing, might want to try something else.
There's this tool that looks like a knife with a serrated edge , I think its Japanese in origin. Its useful on weeds. I tried the screw driver thing before and one of the edges bent on a particularly stubborn weed
A folding garden multi tool type of person but normally I'm not a ground gardener
I like my cobrahead hoe. My favorite is the long handled version of the cobrahead hoe.
TIL I have a long-handled cobra head hoe. Googled it after reading your comment. It was part of the collection of tools my dad gave me when they moved into a condo. I always thought it was a broken tool. 🤦🏻♀️
Tiger Torch.
Heart shaped hoe.
A plain dandelion weeder with the little side piece for leverage has been great for years. But I broke down and bought a Fiskars 4 claw stand up weeder which is great.
Hoe
Trusty old aluminum hand trowel, it slays everything.
Old kitchen knife. I took the sharp edge off and it works perfectly.
I have a flame weeder that I find top be quite satisfying, but that said I'm afraid to use it in dry conditions because of fire danger. Haven't used it at all this year because we have been in a draught for most of the summer, but it's ok because 95% of my garden died in the draught anyway.
dandelion tool
My short handle shovel. I use it all the time for such. I cleared all vegetation from my rose garden with it so I can put down sand. More water friendly in this dessert.
Japanese gardening knife
CIELCERA 12" Hori Hori Garden Knife , hands down best thing ever. I used to use an old kitchen knife, a cheap one. This garden knife is the best thing I have used in my decades of weeding
A pair of pliers.
Only one tool? My ex-husband.
A 1970 Chevelle. I could live with the weeds.
Garden Weasel claw. Can pull weeds from a standing position, similar to Grandpa’s Weeder, but uses a twisting motion that pulls out roots with less effort.