Friday Favorite: the Hand Hoe
One day, on a whim, I added a hand hoe to an on-line purchase. I’ve tried all sorts of hand tools in the garden and have been disappointed almost every time. Like my cobra head weeder, most of them are gathering dust.
Little did I know how much I would love this tool and how often I would use it. In fast, it’s probably my most used garden hand tool. Why do I love it so much?
It has a very sharp edge, which I sharpen a few times each season. This edge allows it to cut through tiny seedlings. You can drag the sharp edge and skim the top of the soil cutting off tiny seedlings as you go. If you get them small enough, they won’t come back.
Thanks Maybelline for asking in the comment section about what I use to sharpen my tools. I have used the Spyderco Tri-Angle Sharpmaker for 17 years for all my sharpening needs from garden tools to kitchen knives.
The pointed tip is great for digging up the entire roots of larger weeds. It can also be used as a small maddox for whacking at tough weeds to get them up. The pointed tip also allows enough precision to weed around plants, even if they’re growing fairly close together.
The shape of this tool makes it much easier on the wrist than a regular trowel. Weeding for a couple hours does not result in any wrist pain or strain. It also provides some much needed leverage when trying to “pop” tenacious weeds from their spots.
This is the tool you will find me using most often in the garden, especially when weeding. I will never be without a hand hoe in my tool shed! I noticed there are a variety of hand hoes on Amazon. One of these days I’ll buy another one or two of these other options for my garden toolbox. Now that Mr Chiots is getting more into gardening he might start making mine scarce.
What’s your favorite gardening hand tool?
Share this:
Using Burlap in the Garden
A few years ago, I discovered burlap and it’s many uses in the garden. It comes in very handy for a variety of applications and is very inexpensive. Burlap can be found at your local fabric/craft store by the yard.
The best use for burlap is as mulch. When you harvest an area of the garden, lay down a piece of burlap to cover the soil until you plant something else. It will help with moisture retention and to limit erosion of the soil you’ve worked so hard to build. We all know that soil is the most valuable item on our property and we should be doing whatever we can to keep it from eroding away.
Where burlap really shines is for direct seeding in mid-summer. With the heat and lack of rain most gardeners experience this time of year, burlap is a valuable tool to improve germination rates. I have found that laying a piece of burlap over newly sown seeds makes them germinate much faster. Not only does it help keep the area moist by preventing evaporation, it prevents seeds from being washed away when it rains.
I have found burlap to be essential when starting seeds that take a long time to germinate and prefer moist conditions, especially carrots, chervil, dill, and parsley.
To use burlap for seed starting:
- sow your seeds following package directions
- lay burlap over the seeds
- water when the soil gets dry
- check daily for germination
- when seeds germinate remove burlap
Burlap also comes in quite handy for wrapping plants in winter. If you grow things that are on the edge of your hardiness zone, they’ll appreciate a burlap blanket during the cold winter months. Plants like figs, hydrangeas, and boxwood all love a cozy warm wrapping of burlap. The wrapping doesn’t necessarily keep them warmer, it just protects them fro the desiccating cold winter wind. Sometimes plants don’t need wrapped for weather protections but to keep nibbling deer away. I usually wrap my blueberries for this reason. If you’re uncertain about how to wrap plants, here’s my post about it.
Burlap also comes in handy to protect the root balls of plants while you move them, especially if you can’t replant them right away. You can use small pieces of it in the bottoms of pots to keep the soil in. If you keep some in your garden tool area you’ll find that it comes in handy often!
Do you use burlap in the garden? Any great uses to recommend?
Share this:
It is August now
It is August now. There are currants and gooseberries to preserve, tomatoes to tie up and watch anxiously for the first ripening, potatoes to rob of the smallest, most succulent tubers, cucumbers to take when they are as slender as a finger, the last few pods of peas to eat raw as we gather salads for every meal. It is August, and the garden is paradise.
Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd in Living Seasonally: The Kitchen Garden and the Table at North Hill
These guys live in Vermont, so their gardens are a little behind mine here in Ohio. I’d have to categorize June/July as the paradise months in the garden. Though the tomatoes don’t really come on until August so you have give August some love for that reason.
Peas are long gone here in NE Ohio, they quit producing when the temperature starts heating up in June. They’ve been replaced by beans, both bush and climbing. Only have handful of beans have been harvested so far, but soon enough I’ll be picking them by the bowlful!
The salad plants are also a distant memory except for a few pungent arugula plants that are still hanging on. I quite like very peppery arugula so we’ve been enjoying it on sandwiches.
The peppers are leafing out nicely and just starting to bloom. A few small Thai pepper plants have a few fruits. Luckily I scored a few green peppers from a local farmer at the market last week. Those were cooked up into sloppy joes.
Potatoes have been coming on for over a month now. Yukon Gold and a red variety (most like Cranberry) have been gracing our plates. In a few weeks my Kennebec will be ready to harvest and tucked away in the pantry.
The garlic and about half of the onions were harvested. They are being replaced with a late planting of beans, beets and various herbs. The red onions will be ready to harvest this week and a few late plantings will be harvested next month.
My mom’s potager is doing really well this year. All of the years she’s spent building the soil is really paying off. Her soil retains water better than most because of all of the organic matter she adds each year. Check back Saturday for a tour of her garden when I was over last week.
What’s the best month of the year for your edible garden?
Share this:
Garden Tour: Side Garden
The next area of the garden featured in the garden tour is The Side Garden. This garden is on the Southeast side of the house. It’s a long narrow space, 10 feet wide by 30 feet long.
Bordered on one side by our two story home and on the other by huge 80 ft tulip poplars, it’s not the easiest space to garden. Even though I’ve been amending the soil in this portion of the garden for the past 10 years, the big trees suck up all the nutrients and water.
In order to deal with the heavy feeding of the large trees, I layer a large portion of my garden waste over the soil as mulch. Everything from garlic leaves to grass clippings is added to my thick layer of mulch around all the plants.
The deep shade also makes it difficult to grow much of anything. Lucky for me, hostas and hydrangeas love this space, and I love hostas and hydrangeas. There are a great number of hostas; those with huge corrugated leaves in colors of blue, yellow and green, along with more delicate hostas.
In the spring, there are a few bleeding hearts, tulips, lily of the valley and dogtooth violets that bloom beautifully. The bleeding heart came from my mom’s garden and the lily of the valley came from my grandma (my mom’s mom).
In summer, this garden is bursting with hydrangeas of all colors, from the multi-colored ‘Endless Summer’ and the classic ‘Nikko Blue’ to a stunning ‘Limelight’ that is about 10 feet tall and blooms profusely in late summer. There are also a few that aren’t mature enough to bloom yet, Golden oak leaf, Big Daddy, Penny Mac and a few others.
For the longest time it was a neglected space, but it changed dramatically this spring. After much thought, lots of back building digging, a curved walkway emerged and the garden was complete.
I edged the walkway with hostas, both to accentuate the curve and to add a nice mowing edge. The results were AMAZING. Lucky for me I had a huge patch of mature hostas on the front hillside that needed moved. There were just enough to line the entire walkway. It was instant beauty, no waiting around for the plants to grow and fill in.
Every time I give a garden tour people comment about the curved hosta lined walkway as soon as they round the corner. This is the view when you round the corner from the front lawn as it looked yesterday morning.
This is the view when you round the corner of the house coming from the opposite direction.
The shady nature of this garden makes the grass struggle to grow. I’ve been establishing a more shade tolerant variety of grass and white clover as well. As a result, the green walkway is looking better than ever, even with the drought of this summer.
This side garden is a working garden, it gets a tremendous amount of traffic. I find myself constantly walking through the garden with a wheelbarrow or watering cans. The outdoor spigot is also in this space, so the hose cart resides here as well. The air conditioner and sewer crock are also located in this space.
After long being neglected, The Side Garden has finally come into its own this summer. It is probably one of my most favorite spaces now.
What’s your favorite shade loving plant?
Chiot’s Run Garden Tour
The Middle Garden
The Side Garden
The Front Hillside Garden
Mr Chiot’s Mailbox Garden
Garden Tour: The Front Garden
Share this:
Love/Hate
Last week I was over at Red Dirt Ramblings reading Dee’s post about plants she used to hate but now loves. It got me thinking about the plants I love and hate. Daylilies used to be among my hates, particularly the ‘Stella de Oro’ variety. I think I really dislike them because they’re way overused, at least here in NE Ohio. Every shopping complex and retail area has them everywhere. When we first arrived at Chiot’s Run there were a good number of daylilies planted in the garden, most of which were given to my mom.
Why do I dislike lilies? I don’t really know, perhaps it’s because the flowers fade so quickly and look untidy. Maybe it’s the shape of the plants. For some reason I’ve always disliked them.
Although certain day lilies are now welcome in the gardens of Chiot’s Run, I still haven’t learned to love the poor ‘Stella de Oro’. Arborvitaes & yews were also on my list of dislikes when it came to plants, but both have been slowly making their way onto the tolerable and possibly useful in certain situations list.
Are there any plants that you used to dislike but now like?
