Cait's Garden

Way back when I started this post, I talked about “tools of the trade.” I think this advice bears repeating. There are three weeding/cultivating tools in my gardener’s arsenal that continue to prove invaluable year after year. They are: the Garden Knife, the Circle Hoe, and the Cobrahead. These three products have saved me many hours of weeding time over the years. They work shockingly well. Let me break them down for you.

The Garden Knife [left] is super-strong with a serrated edge (and its own holster!). This is a great tool for slicing out deep weed roots in tricky, narrow places. Such as when you need to get invasive grass out from within and around a patch of valuable perennial. It’s kind of like a surgical tool, precise and targeted. You can also use it to slice out small plants for transplant or to dig holes for bulbs.

The Cobrahead [right] is awesome for big, obnoxious weeds with long roots like dandelions and thistle weed. It’s especially good for spot lawn weeding. The head has a very sharp blade and it’s shape really digs under the ground to pop out the weeds quickly and completely in one swoop.

My favorite by far, though, is the Circle Hoe [center]. The one in the photo is the smallest size, good for precise weeding around delicate flowers. I also have a medium-size handle version for a longer reach and my favorite, a long-handled version that lets me weed/cultivate while standing and that easily handles deeply rooted weeds, too. You can purchase them as a set. The bottom of the circle is a sharp blade that cut through the weeds/dirt, which then pass through the opening in the circle.  You can slice through the hardest ground and the toughest weeds like butter. I let my new neighbor try it last summer and he was amazed. Seriously, if you buy just one kind of new tool, make it the Circle Hoe (the whole set if you can). It’ll rock your world.