[Market-farming] Glaser wheel hoe
Road's End Farm
organic87 at frontiernet.net
Sat Jan 31 13:44:35 EST 2009
On Jan 31, 2009, at 11:40 AM, Beth Spaugh wrote:
> I personally thing the wheel hoe takes more energy than a good hand
> hoe.
> Easiest hand hoe I have is a diamond blade. I have not yet bought, but
> plan
> to a Dutch diamond hoe that has a nice long handle and is reputed to
> be very
> efficient and easy to use, and costs over $100 so it better be good.
>
> I probably am not using the wheel hoe correctly, but the height
> adjustment
> is very important. I end up pulling and pushing and pulling and
> pushing,
> which is harder with the wheel hoe than with a small hand hoe. Maybe in
> lighter soil, in more level soil, etc with a wheel hoe you could just
> fast
> forward. The stirrup is larger so should cover more ground with fewer
> strokes.
For weeding up in the row between the plants, the hand hoe is
essential. (My favorite long handled hoe, unfortunately, doesn't seem
to be anywhere available; it's an oddly shaped hoe that was on the
market for only one or two years some years ago, called a Doug Black
hoe. This has a flat blade that's used like a diamond hoe, but is
shaped differently: the front and back edges are curved and sharpened
(and hold an edge like nobody's business, even in rocks); the sides are
straight and dull, allowing the hoer to work in very close to crop
plants with much less risk of damaging them. The blade slides right
under the leaves of crops to get right next to the stems.
For cultivating row aisles, I find a wheel hoe much faster and easier
than a hand hoe; though the Troybuilt set to cultivate very shallowly
is faster than either, so easier per square foot covered. (The
Troybuilt is however much noisier, vibrates, needs gas, is more
expensive to buy and to maintain. It also throws some soil to the sides
of the cultivated path, which is nice for corn and beans, but a problem
for lettuce.)
I can't speak to the Glaser specifically. I have a collection of wheel
hoes of various makes that I bought at yard sales over a period of ten
or twenty years, most of them for $5 to $10. I am 5' 2" and find some
of them easier to use than others. I think some modern wheel hoes may
have adjustable handle heights. I do indeed use it with a push-pull
motion, but find with a little practice that the motion comes fairly
naturally. I use various attachments, depending on just what I'm doing.
I have moderately heavy stony loam with some clay.
-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale
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