Kitchen Garden Forum

Please excuse my naivety, but I have a pleasure to share. Seeing the light, has been a learning curve of major proportions, also a memory dredge of equal effort over the past few months. Remembering the enthusiasm of my late wife for her garden, Dad also and Grandad all dug and planted for pleasure.

A tool I remember Dad a Grandad use was a 3 pronged cultivator rake. I have one that was Dads I think? However the real memory was when I acquired a minuter version 20+ years ago . . . useless, soil was to heavy, pulled the head off! and I did not have the enthusiasm then to think and repair it.

Well the present house has very light sandy soil, and when clearing the green house, I can across the discarded handle and thought I'll get another one. Great for weeding in between rows and tarting up the light soil. Do you think I could find one that was like the old one, and reasonably priced, I new exactly what I was looking for, long term memory is great! Tools similar, but not the same as my minds eye picture.

Poking around in the corner a few weeks later, in the bottom of a bucket under some other old tools, my miniature cultivator head . . . re united it with the handle, wonderful.

The purpose of these ramblings . . . it is the most useful weeding tool in my light soil, because it is small it gets into between plants, tends to drag weed out root and all, rather than slicing as a hoe does, and turned the top inch or so of soil if I want.

I have seen them even smaller, made for window boxes and pots. Seen the modern version which does not look as well designed and is expensive, tight old git me Any one else use one and find it as usefully functional as I do.





CJS

Dear CJS, my ground is a little too heavy to use one of those, i'm more of a hoe man myself.

And i hope to see more paint worn off of yours the next time we see a picture of it, now your back into gardening that is.

Hello CJS.
My mum has a similar looking implement in her tool array. But what I find even more useful when working her garden is a similarly short handled tool that ends as a minature hoe, probably about 3 inches wide. Its excellent for close in weeding work.

Marken wrote:Hello CJS.
My mum has a similar looking implement in her tool array. But what I find even more useful when working her garden is a similarly short handled tool that ends as a minature hoe, probably about 3 inches wide. Its excellent for close in weeding work.

Yes I can imagine a small (narrow) hoe to be very useful, seem to remember something in the 70's that looked rather like and size of a golf club, fashioned with a cutting edge front and back, to cut push and pull?

Then there is the wire 'hoe', a 'Y' shaped fork with a wire across the tips of the 'V', not sure how efficient that might be? Goes away from the principle of 'angles' and a blade that stops the hoe digging in?

CJS

Here is a little array of Wolf Cultivators at home here...used on our quite light sandy soil to good effect....

The one without the handle currently has not seen use yet...think I may need a few more Weetabix in the morning to enable me to pull it

The one on the left is from the recent Wolf range...I think it has been dropped from the range but I have seen a very similar replacement model return again recently. They still, I believe, do one smaller and one larger than it.

Unfortunately there has been a design change though. ..which affects the models that have the additional plate on the tines. The older models shown in the middle of the photo have the tine slotted and a pointed plate inserted....these pull very nicely into the soil and do not clog once shined up. Meanwhile, the newer type have an angled plate attached above the round tine...so difficult to explain ....but the sad story is that I have found that these newer versions (not in photo) can clog with soil underneath...

I should really go capture another photo to show the shine on the tine..

Clive.

Is the shine on this ok Old H'.?

It's the very usefull one second from right on the earlier photos....and not the chromed one on the left....

Clive.

Just pefect Clive, i even had to squint a little, it shines that much.

All joking apart, i love to see a toolshed full of well used, well looked after tools.

I think it will be a while before the big one gets well used ...although a handle is in stock.
.....and another of the middle size head is in stock with a handle to match...

I just love going to a s/h shop and finding a once loved garden tool and returning it to good use....rather than it suffering the indignity of being fastened to a pub wall
....and even better finding some new old stock.

Clive.