market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Market Farming
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- From: road's end farm <organic101 AT linkny.com>
- To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [Market-farming] hoes
- Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 11:45:43 -0500
On Mar 13, 2005, at 8:06 AM, TxBeeFarmer wrote:
This web site has a bunch of different kinds of hoes. Maybe what you want
is there.
http://www.harmonyfarm.com/Search.bok?category=Tools- Garden%3A+Hoes+%26+Weed
ers
There is a disc-hoe called the "heart" that you can push and pull. Here's
an address for them.
http://www.floridagardener.com/misc/dischoe.htm
Let us know if any are what you were looking for.
The closest of these to what I'm looking for is the Prohoe Rogue Push Style on the Harmony Farm site. However:
The Doug Black hoe is sharpened on both the front and the back, so it cuts on both the pull and push strokes; The Rogue Push appears not to be sharpened on the back and will cut presumably only on the push stroke and do nothing on the pull. As I work with the Doug Black by sliding it back and forth, mostly without lifting it, half the energy would be wasted if using a hoe that only cuts on the push.
Also: the Rogue is sharpened on both sides. The Doug Black is dull on the sides. (Sides are straight on the Doug Black, the sharpened front and rear surfaces are both curved.) The dull sides are a great advantage when weeding in close to the crop; you can slide the head right next to the plant you want to save with much less risk of cutting it off.
I might try the Rogue, though. Not everybody has the same favorite hoe and assorted other people do work here sometimes; and it does look sturdy. I have rocks and clay; despite fairly high organic matter the soil needs a sturdy tool. The Doug Blacks have held up beautifully. A good Swan hoe carefully used will last for a while here (usually until someone tries to use it as a grub hoe, despite my warnings and my providing an actual grub hoe in case of need). I have an Eliot Coleman hoe somewhere that bent impossibly out of shape in the first few minutes of use; it's probably a good tool for sand or for very light loams with no rocks, but useless here.
I'm confused by the Heart hoes on the floridagardener site. They look in the picture as if they're shallow weeding hoes, designed (like the Doug Black and the Rogue Push) to slice weeds off just below the soil surface; but they're being advertised as also digging hoes, good for digging planting holes. In my experience, a shallow weeding hoe is better for cutting weeds but not much use for anything that involves moving earth, such as digging holes. I also can't tell what edges are sharpened (if any; they look pretty dull in the picture, but that may be the picture). The narrow tip doesn't look like the best shape for doing what I want to do, which is clearing significant areas of redroot amaranth etc. from between plants in a row, including such widely spaced plants as young winter squash; it looks better suited for very narrow spaces, or maybe for hooking out single large weeds with the notch in the back of the hoe.
-
Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
road's end farm, 03/12/2005
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Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
Willie McKemie, 03/13/2005
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Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
road's end farm, 03/13/2005
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Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
TxBeeFarmer, 03/13/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
road's end farm, 03/13/2005
- Re: [Market-farming] hoes, TxBeeFarmer, 03/13/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
road's end farm, 03/13/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
TxBeeFarmer, 03/13/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
road's end farm, 03/13/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
TxBeeFarmer, 03/13/2005
-
Message not available
- Re: [Market-farming] hoes, road's end farm, 03/13/2005
-
Message not available
- Re: [Market-farming] hoes, Joan Vibert, 03/14/2005
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Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
Willie McKemie, 03/13/2005
- <Possible follow-up(s)>
- Re: [Market-farming] hoes, MIDWESTSMITTY, 03/13/2005
- [Market-farming] hoes, road's end farm, 03/13/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] hoes,
ljm7788, 03/14/2005
- Re: [Market-farming] hoes, road's end farm, 03/14/2005
- Re: [Market-farming] hoes, Willie McKemie, 03/14/2005
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