A Favourite Tool: My Grub Hoe

One of my first tools purchased for gardening when I was a young man was a Hoe.  It had a typical ‘B’ shaped head – with the flat side of the ‘B’ used for the scraping and chopping.  The head was made from poor quality steel and wouldn’t hold a sharp edge.  Its handle was too short and it was the wrong weight: too light to chop anything solid and too heavy and dull to slice through standing weeds growing near any vegetables.  I found I rarely used it.

In the end the ‘B’ shaped hoe was good for only one thing: Mixing -- either potting mix or concrete in a wheelbarrow.  It was useless in the garden.

For years I used a shovel to loosen or turn the soil in my beds.  After turning I followed that with my bow rake to break up any clods and to mix in any soil amendments.

But over the years I struggled with the hard-packed chicken runs caused partly by our incessant winter rains in our Wet Coast.  Eventually I purchased a tiny Mantis tiller.  That broke up the clods of the sticky chicken runs but the gas Mantis was a pain to start, maintain and trouble shoot.  It was noisy, smelly, and smoky and jumped and spun while it chewed up the harder soils.  I have no small gas engine skills, it was the only small gas engine I ever owned, and eventually I was back using my peacefully quiet shovel and rake.

One day, while visiting our daughter and her family in southern California, I wandered into one of their big hardware stores and as a gardener I naturally checked out their tools.  They had a ‘Planter’s Eye Hoe’.  It was a heavy thing with a 2 lb head and a thick, longer handle.  I bought it and drove it the 1350 miles back home. 

 

This Grub Hoe is the same type of thing that the Third World uses instead of a shovel.  My missionary friend, Chris, in Uganda teaches the locals the Farming God’s Way program and he says he prefers a 3 lb head.

It was excellent for chopping up the chicken’s bed and I also started using it for turning my beds and mixing in amendments at the same time.  But it did take quite a bit of energy to use. 

Then I tried it for weeding my bed paths.  It did the job just fine (this was before I perfected my dad-in-law’s Push Hoe).

This tent I live in is aging fast and comes with more and more aches and pains – my bad shoulder and much older back aren’t really arthritic, they’re just worn.  (or as Red Green said: “I’m not old, I’m ripe.”)   I’ve accepted that I’m now an old guy, so I purchased a new electric, corded Mantis.  It works like a charm, should last for many years, is so easy to start, and is way quieter than anything else motorized. (and no smelly, smoky gas engine to go wonky). The Mantis is now what I use for turning beds and mixing in amendments.  

But my Grub Hoe is still handy for small jobs – a small area to prepare for planting garlic or transplanting lettuces or to loosen up a portion of the chicken’s run so they’ll start digging and scratching there again.  The Grub Hoe is quick and easy and can be used even when kneeling in the bird’s run.  

This Grub Hoe is quite the useful tool.  Maybe that’s why billions of people are still using it. 

Happy Gardening.