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Post by garnetmoth on Nov 18, 2010 12:15:18 GMT -5
Hello all,
As Christmas approaches, DH and I are looking at useful gifts for each other. He wants a hatchet or small axe- there are some well rated bargains on Amazon.com, but id like to find an affordable handmade one if possible.... He goes around the woods around the house in the winter and chops through the gosh darn wild grapes and Im sure it would come in handy for other applications!
For transplanting, i love my widger- i bought one from Bountiful Gardens and it is just the right size/shape for gentle transplanting. I still have the teaspoon my mom used, but for tightly packed seedlings, widger wins.
We also bought a pellet gun this year. Crosman break barrel, its pretty nice.
We have a steep driveway, were just on a small city house lot, I am thinking of making a "burden cloth" style carrier when I get back into sewing for the winter. ....
any items you have found make life easier for gardening, cooking, or small livestock?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 18, 2010 13:32:31 GMT -5
any items you have found make life easier for gardening, cooking, or small livestock? I have a modified hoe that I just love. It started out as a normal garden hoe with a handle that is six inches longer than typical. Then I cut off an inch from each of the narrow edges, so it's only about 4 inches wide. I left it home the other day and had to use a regular hoe for a couple hours. Oh my gosh I was grumpy. |
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Post by raymondo on Nov 19, 2010 4:39:15 GMT -5
I have a four-pronged cultivator which I like, except that the handle is too short so I have to stoop a little to use it. I think I'll buy myself a longer handle for Christmas!
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Post by garnetmoth on Nov 19, 2010 14:51:32 GMT -5
Joseph- so a long-handled narrow-bladed hoe- sounds neat. How did you trim off the original? I think my dad has a pneumatic cut-off wheel...? We have one of those silly looking spur-wheel 3-wheel rolling weeders- my hubby likes it a lot, and a regular hoe that is a bit wide for most of our areas...
Ray- sounds like a nice Christmas gift! We have mostly small spaces, and I have a hand cultivator, and a hard rake
I think Ive settled on a hatchet- Gransfors Bruks has a 20 year guarantee! (their wildlife hatchet)
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 19, 2010 18:04:15 GMT -5
To make my hoe narrower I used a cut-off wheel on a bench grinder. The extra handle length is very valuable to me. I would like to add about six inches to the handle of the Earthway seeder that I use. I am 6' 2" so longer tools sure save me from bending over so much.
Does anyone have suggestions for a tool to plant one corn seed at a time?
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Post by sandbar on Nov 19, 2010 23:27:10 GMT -5
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Post by sandbar on Nov 19, 2010 23:57:01 GMT -5
As I've posted before on this forum, my all-time favorite hoe is Coleman's Colinear Hoe from Johnny's: www.johnnyseeds.com/p-5494-standard-collinear-hoe-with-repl-blade.aspxI bought the one with the replaceable blade. Allows me to stand up straight and hoe (I'm 6'2") ... no more strained back!! (BTW, I do not work for Johnny's ... I just like some of their tools) |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 20, 2010 0:38:29 GMT -5
my all-time favorite hoe is Coleman's Colinear Hoe from Johnny's: How is is used? Does Colinear imply both pushing and pulling? The advertisement mentioned thinning... How is that accomplished? |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 20, 2010 1:03:31 GMT -5
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Post by johno on Nov 20, 2010 11:21:09 GMT -5
That's too cool, Joseph. I was going to tell you about my single-seed planter until I saw Sandbar's sticks in action, but this home made one is great! I have to use two hands with my primitive set-up (a length of pipe and a bag of seeds).
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Post by bunkie on Nov 21, 2010 13:15:40 GMT -5
that's a terrific homemade seed planter joseph! got to show it to ed!
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Post by Alan on Nov 24, 2010 19:59:17 GMT -5
For those with the room and inclination I seriously suggest setting up a small and simple forge from found materials and sourcing scrap Iron and Steel from wherever you can.
At current pace I am designing 9 or 10 "utilitarian" implements for use on the farm and for sale to the public.
In time I'll publish the designs and pics to the blog site, but at the moment I'm working on utilitarian:
Hunting Knives
Peasant Hoes
Furrowing Plows
Soil Fork
Pitch Fork
Corn Knives
Sickles
Drawing Knife
and a handful of other uniqe designs. Having access to a large acerage of woods between what we own and what the neighbors allow me to meander accross will give me access to hand made handles using a simple homemade drawing knife.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 24, 2010 20:54:38 GMT -5
So I would like a hoe that I could use when I am planting seeds.
It would be something like a snow-plow... So I could just drag it up the row and make a furrow to plant seeds in without all the mis-directed effort that is involved in digging a furrow with a weeding hoe. Any suggestions?
I've designed a planting stick. I'll build a prototype this winter...
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Post by seedywen on Nov 25, 2010 21:03:02 GMT -5
I like the shuffle hoe. Cuts the weeds off at soil level, without disturbing the soil, bring new weed seeds to the surface.
Shuffling along through the rows a few times is usually enough to thwart rapid weed growers to give up the ghost. At least in that location.
In the early part of the growing season I often shuffle hoe a few times and then interplant something like white or crimson clover as a cover crop.
Plant a few weeks behind say, the planting or corn so as to not compete with the crop, but soon enough to get somewhat established before the growing corn cuts off the majority of sunlight. Then when the corn is done, the cover crop continues to survive the winter and keep perennial weeds like grass, dock etc. from gaining a firm foothold before the first tilling, which in this garden will be April at the earliest.
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Post by Hristo on Nov 26, 2010 7:37:56 GMT -5
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. No, this is not exactly a joke. I 'm using hoe a lot (though our traditional hoes (and axes btw) are very different than yours) and when the temps hit 25+ C it becomes awful. So this year decided to combine the hoe with something like this: