What did you do in the garden today?

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Allow me to sing for you the praises of the humble stirrup hoe. No, I'm to talking about a woman of questionable virtue with a fondness for cowboys and/or her gynecologist. I'm referring to the garden implement of destruction, named for the fact that its business end is shaped like a saddle stirrup.

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I'd never used one until a couple of days ago, after having picked up a copy of the one in the above image in an effort to more effectively deal with the army of weeds that so relentlessly keep popping up in my vegetable garden. For those that are more than about 8" or so from the plants and tops of the rows, where my drip irrigation tape is buried just a couple of inches below the surface, brute force methods (up to and including judicious applications of Roundup) suffice. But for closer in a more surgical method is needed to avoid damaging the plants and/or the buried drip tape. Conventional hoes (again, not the "ladies" who do so well when business trade shows come to town) are great when you can use them to chop up the ground to get at the roots, but are obviously not suitable to this application. I had been just pulling the weeds by hand, which is quite effective given that you can get most/all of the roots out with the rest of the plant, but it just wasn't proving to be practical for 1,000 row feet of crops.

Enter the stirrup hoe, which is designed to decapitat weeds just below the surface via relatively shirt back-and-forth strokes with the bladed strip that is the base of the stirrup. This shallow cutting action makes it easy to get in close to the veggies and just above the buried plumbing without damaging either. While not the instant permanent solution that removal of the roots is, it can be applied to far more weeds in a far shorter amount of time without the back-aching bending and fumbling for a good grip on the often slippery green bastards. And although the weed will tend to renew the top growth using energy reserves stored in the roots, if you repeat the decapitation before they can reestablish enough leaves to perform photosynthesis and generate more food those energy reserves will eventually be depleted and the weed will die.

I've found that a quick pass on 2 or 3 rows first thing in the morning before it gets too hot outside is allowing me to keep the weeds from getting the upper hand. There are a couple of spots where the planting density prevents use of the tool and I still need to resort to pulling weeds by hand...like the onions, peas and carrots...but those add up to only about 50 row-feet in total, or about 5% of the garden. I can live with that.
 
DParker75089 said:
Allow me to sing for you the praises of the humble stirrup hoe. No, I'm to talking about a woman of questionable virtue with a fondness for cowboys and/or her gynecologist. I'm referring to the garden implement of destruction, named for the fact that its business end is shaped like a saddle stirrup.

View attachment 3107616

I'd never used one until a couple of days ago, after having picked up a copy of the one in the above image in an effort to more effectively deal with the army of weeds that so relentlessly keep popping up in my vegetable garden. For those that are more than about 8" or so from the plants and tops of the rows, where my drip irrigation tape is buried just a couple of inches below the surface, brute force methods (up to and including judicious applications of Roundup) suffice. But for closer in a more surgical method is needed to avoid damaging the plants and/or the buried drip tape. Conventional hoes (again, not the "ladies" who do so well when business trade shows come to town) are great when you can use them to chop up the ground to get at the roots, but are obviously not suitable to this application. I had been just pulling the weeds by hand, which is quite effective given that you can get most/all of the roots out with the rest of the plant, but it just wasn't proving to be practical for 1,000 row feet of crops.

Enter the stirrup hoe, which is designed to decapitat weeds just below the surface via relatively shirt back-and-forth strokes with the bladed strip that is the base of the stirrup. This shallow cutting action makes it easy to get in close to the veggies and just above the buried plumbing without damaging either. While not the instant permanent solution that removal of the roots is, it can be applied to far more weeds in a far shorter amount of time without the back-aching bending and fumbling for a good grip on the often slippery green bastards. And although the weed will tend to renew the top growth using energy reserves stored in the roots, if you repeat the decapitation before they can reestablish enough leaves to perform photosynthesis and generate more food those energy reserves will eventually be depleted and the weed will die.

I've found that a quick pass on 2 or 3 rows first thing in the morning before it gets too hot outside is allowing me to keep the weeds from getting the upper hand. There are a couple of spots where the planting density prevents use of the tool and I still need to resort to pulling weeds by hand...like the onions, peas and carrots...but those add up to only about 50 row-feet in total, or about 5% of the garden. I can live with that.
Click to expand...
In the city, a hoe is a garden tool. The other insinuation you mentioned would be spelled ho. At least where I’m from.
 
DParker75089 said:
Allow me to sing for you the praises of the humble stirrup hoe. No, I'm to talking about a woman of questionable virtue with a fondness for cowboys and/or her gynecologist. I'm referring to the garden implement of destruction, named for the fact that its business end is shaped like a saddle stirrup.

View attachment 3107616

I'd never used one until a couple of days ago, after having picked up a copy of the one in the above image in an effort to more effectively deal with the army of weeds that so relentlessly keep popping up in my vegetable garden. For those that are more than about 8" or so from the plants and tops of the rows, where my drip irrigation tape is buried just a couple of inches below the surface, brute force methods (up to and including judicious applications of Roundup) suffice. But for closer in a more surgical method is needed to avoid damaging the plants and/or the buried drip tape. Conventional hoes (again, not the "ladies" who do so well when business trade shows come to town) are great when you can use them to chop up the ground to get at the roots, but are obviously not suitable to this application. I had been just pulling the weeds by hand, which is quite effective given that you can get most/all of the roots out with the rest of the plant, but it just wasn't proving to be practical for 1,000 row feet of crops.

Enter the stirrup hoe, which is designed to decapitat weeds just below the surface via relatively shirt back-and-forth strokes with the bladed strip that is the base of the stirrup. This shallow cutting action makes it easy to get in close to the veggies and just above the buried plumbing without damaging either. While not the instant permanent solution that removal of the roots is, it can be applied to far more weeds in a far shorter amount of time without the back-aching bending and fumbling for a good grip on the often slippery green bastards. And although the weed will tend to renew the top growth using energy reserves stored in the roots, if you repeat the decapitation before they can reestablish enough leaves to perform photosynthesis and generate more food those energy reserves will eventually be depleted and the weed will die.

I've found that a quick pass on 2 or 3 rows first thing in the morning before it gets too hot outside is allowing me to keep the weeds from getting the upper hand. There are a couple of spots where the planting density prevents use of the tool and I still need to resort to pulling weeds by hand...like the onions, peas and carrots...but those add up to only about 50 row-feet in total, or about 5% of the garden. I can live with that.
Click to expand...
We call that a hula hoe. It’s a wonderful tool!
 
DParker75089 said:
Allow me to sing for you the praises of the humble stirrup hoe. No, I'm to talking about a woman of questionable virtue with a fondness for cowboys and/or her gynecologist. I'm referring to the garden implement of destruction, named for the fact that its business end is shaped like a saddle stirrup.

View attachment 3107616

I'd never used one until a couple of days ago, after having picked up a copy of the one in the above image in an effort to more effectively deal with the army of weeds that so relentlessly keep popping up in my vegetable garden. For those that are more than about 8" or so from the plants and tops of the rows, where my drip irrigation tape is buried just a couple of inches below the surface, brute force methods (up to and including judicious applications of Roundup) suffice. But for closer in a more surgical method is needed to avoid damaging the plants and/or the buried drip tape. Conventional hoes (again, not the "ladies" who do so well when business trade shows come to town) are great when you can use them to chop up the ground to get at the roots, but are obviously not suitable to this application. I had been just pulling the weeds by hand, which is quite effective given that you can get most/all of the roots out with the rest of the plant, but it just wasn't proving to be practical for 1,000 row feet of crops.

Enter the stirrup hoe, which is designed to decapitat weeds just below the surface via relatively shirt back-and-forth strokes with the bladed strip that is the base of the stirrup. This shallow cutting action makes it easy to get in close to the veggies and just above the buried plumbing without damaging either. While not the instant permanent solution that removal of the roots is, it can be applied to far more weeds in a far shorter amount of time without the back-aching bending and fumbling for a good grip on the often slippery green bastards. And although the weed will tend to renew the top growth using energy reserves stored in the roots, if you repeat the decapitation before they can reestablish enough leaves to perform photosynthesis and generate more food those energy reserves will eventually be depleted and the weed will die.

I've found that a quick pass on 2 or 3 rows first thing in the morning before it gets too hot outside is allowing me to keep the weeds from getting the upper hand. There are a couple of spots where the planting density prevents use of the tool and I still need to resort to pulling weeds by hand...like the onions, peas and carrots...but those add up to only about 50 row-feet in total, or about 5% of the garden. I can live with that.
Click to expand...
My favorite garden tool. I've sharpened the edge and replaced the handle on mine twice.
 
My husband planted the new tomato plants, then I weeded and mulched them. I had to put up a temporary barrier thanks to the stupid geese who love to pull my plants out of the ground just for fun.
I got the rest of my herbs and flowers planted.
We are going to put up the premier fencing around the garden but we're too busy today.
We had to sort some heifers to sell, fix and clean the pen so my pigs could go outside, and fix the meatbird pen to get them more room and to keep them from getting out.
My husband took our boys fishing because I wanted him to teach the boys how to clean fish. They were eager to learn and got to filet some for a couple meals.
Then my husband had to start milking cows for the second shift today and I had to do bird chores after I watered all the plants. Now I need to wash dishes, finish the laundry and make supper.
Only found 13 Morels, so sad. :(
IMG_2435.JPG
 

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