Tools for Clearing the Garden

[digitS']

@Ridgerunner , I can imagine that leather gloves are a good idea!

The handle isn't very firmly attached. The collar is short and a single screw doesn't amount to much strength when in the hands of the Babe Ruth of the sunflower row ...

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

@Nyboy

Mom blew up one of those (didn't add the oil to the gasoline and it was a two-stroke). we now have a small honda four stroke push lawn mower but very little grass left to mow. i'm looking forwards to the day i can sell that. i mowed lawns as a kid, and mow as little as possible now. i'd much rather weed gardens than mow anytime. which is probably why we have nearly an acre of them along with all the decorations and crushed limestone mulch...

 

[thistlebloom]

I know this topic is mostly about clearing vegetable gardens...
My vegetable garden is small enough to just pull stuff by hand to pile and compost. If it's a matted mess, like a freeze followed by rain, a 4 prong cultivator works well to drag it all out of the ground. I use loppers on sunflower stalks if I don't want the challenge of getting roots and all.

The perennial beds are treated differently of course. I pretty much use my gas hedgers to mow them down, then rake up and haul off. I used to spend hours bent over, "ponytailing" the perennials in my hand and clipping down. The hedger saves me a lot of time and I can work on my knees for quite a bit of it. Plus it gives a nice uniform haircut that some of my clients appreciate. I started with electric hedgers, but dh protested at all the cord repairs.
On many jobs the outlets are also too far away to make it practical.

@Ridgerunner , that was very educational. Thank you .
I always wondered how the corn shocks could stay standing.

 

[Ridgerunner]

@Ridgerunner , that was very educational. Thank you .
I always wondered how the corn shocks could stay standing.

Thanks Thistle, blame that on too much coffee and our first morning with temps in the low 20's. You can build those shocks around posts or poles stuck in the ground but they are pretty lightweight. A wind can move them if they are not anchored.

 

[digitS']

The hedger saves me a lot of time and I can work on my knees for quite a bit of it. Plus it gives a nice uniform haircut that some of my clients appreciate. I started with electric hedgers, but dh protested at all the cord repairs.

Yes, they would make much more sense for me to own these days than a chainsaw. Loppers? I just don't have enuf use for them, took peach tree out. Threw one pair of loppers away but the other is wrecked and useless, as well.


The smallest blade here is about what I use but on the longer handle. I found this photo looking for "billhooks" & that is how these are known in the UK. Sharpened on both sides, I can see now that they would be useful for the livestock owner for chopping feed. Still, I don't find a picture of a "billhook" with a knob on the bill .

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

Try looking under horror movie props. They look like what a killer in a corn fiedls would use

 

[w_r_ranch]

I pull what I can & use a 'pear burner' for everything else.

 

[so lucky]

"Sling Blade"!

You need to see that movie if you haven't.

 

[digitS']

Why
do I need to

!!!

 

[thistlebloom]

Steve, I have a small tool like what you describe that was my husbands grandpas. I got a lot of his tools when they had a garage sale before they moved into assisted living. He was a farmer and an extraordinary gardener.
For some reason I always thought it was a linoleum knife...