Some specific hoes

The Turnip hoe

You do occasionally see this hoe in a hardware store or garden centre or at a garage or jumble sale. It is a triangular blade, with three working points. I don’t know how this hoe got its name or why this shape suits turnips. It does have the advantage of three points - which means longer working spells between sharpening, and it is good for getting fairly deep into the soil.

General garden hoe or swan neck hoe

This is a lighter ‘chipping’ hoe, similar to the chopping action blade hoes referred to above. The blade is usually attached via a tang and ferrule. The poor material generally used for the handle and the swan neck are the weak points so this hoe should not be used for two-handed chopping, but it is a useful tool for lightweight general garden use.

Onion hoe

The onion hoe is similar to the garden hoe except that it has a broader head, around 180 mm by 50 mm deep. The blade is also sharpened on the sides as well as the bottom. The broad edge works between the rows but the whole tool can be tipped onto its side to work between onions within the row.

Warren hoe

Rarely seen these days, the Warren hoe is a specialised tool for making furrows. The blade is triangular, with the wings angled in towards the operator. These wings are good for pulling soil out of a furrow and for pushing it back into the furrow after seeding or fertilising. Generally the operator needs to lean well forward to use this tool, but it does make a very fine trench or furrow.

Pronged hoes

The three pronged hoe is a traditional Australian gardening tool. It is useful for removing smaller weeds and ‘tickling’ up soil to produce an attractive soil mulch under the roses or elsewhere. Often used in a short handled version for squatting or kneeling or long handled for standing. Often gardeners remove one or two prongs, make them into short handled tools in the home workshop and end up with an accurate, single pronged tool for working close to plants.

The Paxton hoe

Paxton hoes have a broad face, gently shaped to a point in the middle, so that it can be used to drag soil away and form a shallow but broad depression or trench, for planting. It can also be used in the reverse way to build soil up around the roots and suits potatoes, tomatoes and other crops which are ‘hilled’.

The Spintiller

I have one of these tools, but rarely find enough exposed soil on my property to give it a proper run. It would suit larger areas of row crop better. Two pairs of blades are set each side of the handle, at about 12º to the vertical. As the blade is pushed forwards the blades turn (‘spin’), converging (because of the angle) in a slicing motion. A similar tool is the ‘Star Weeder’, which has a number of star shaped disks which rotate when pushed or pulled. Wolf tools made an excellent version of this hoe, Can be used to cover a large area quickly, works in both directions, but only works fairly shallowly.

The Dutch hoe

Dutch hoes are used with a pushing action, rather than chopping. With a good Dutch hoe, sharpened well, the blade can be simply placed on the ground and the operator walks forward. Inefficiencies appear when the hoe has to be ‘shunted’ a short distance and pulled back, or when the handle is too short and the operator has to stoop. This is similar (but opposite) to the chopping hoe - one stroke works while the other only positions the hoe for the next work stroke. The Dutch hoe sold by Hollander Imports (Hobart) is a superior design, with a tough blade, very long heavy duty handle and fitted with a ‘pistol grip’. This design is very easy to use and any one who relies heavily on a hoe should experiment with this design. Best suited to good soil with few stones. There have been many versions of this concept, including the Lincolnshire Longhorn hoe - effectively a broad arrow head tine with a two handled operation, looking very similar to bicycle handles.

The Stirrup hoe

Stirrup hoes are also called scuffle hoes or ‘action’ hoes, because they are shaped like a stirrup and ‘scuffled’ back and forth across the ground. The blade is sharp on both sides and works in either direction. The thin blade actually rocks back and forth as the hoe is alternately pushed and pulled, so that the working surface is at exactly the correct angle to the ground. Any hoe which works in two directions ultimately saves work. An excellent version is available from Gundaroo Tiller.

Disc hoe

Made with a long or short handle (for kneeling work) the disc hoe is simply a round disc of metal. It gas the advantage of being able to do its job in any direction and is easily worked back and forth under established plants - in effect a development of the scuffle hoe which is easier to build. (Other versions of the scuffle hoe, without the ‘moving’ blade include arrow head and diamond shaped hoes which may be used in both directions).

The Coleman Gung hoe

This tool was developed by master vegetable gardener Eliot Coleman, and is sold in Australia by Gundaroo Tiller. It is a different concept in hoeing and works very well for young weeds in soil with few stones.

The Inox stainless steel blade is easily sharpened in the field (with a diamond sharpener) and is used as a draw hoe rather than with a chopping action.

There are two main methods. In the first, the operator stands erect, with a straight back and holds the tool diagonally across the body. For right handers, the right hand holds the long handle about breast height and the left handle grips lower down, about belt height, with both hands gripping, thumbs up. The hoe is then drawn through the soil with quick, shallow strokes. In the second version the tool is located in the soil, close to the planting row, and simply drawn accurately through the soil from one end of the row to the other, without any need to lift the tool out of the soil. Some users turn the blade into a scalloped surface, but I prefer the straight edge.

Wheel hoes

Wheeled hoes are an excellent development, which makes it possible to hoe very large areas by hand. The lightweight design, efficient wheels and multiple tool capacity of modern wheel hoes make them a serious consideration for any small scale vegetable producer. A tool bar behind the wheel can be used to fit a variety of hoeing and soil banking tools, including arrow heads, discs, prongs and delvers or potato mounders. Wheel hoes vary in price from around $250 - $350 depending on the model and the particular tools required.