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[Beekissed]

Bee ... looking at their site, which hoe on their site are you talking about ???

This is the gardening hoe everyone is raving about here, the 60S, which is just the right width for most people.

https://roguehoe.com/product/60s/
https://roguehoe.com/product/60s/
The other link I gave you was the trailblazing hoe page, which just may have something more effective than the shovel you've been using and have a more tough steel for the job.

 

[journey11]

See it in action, @bobm .

It gets beneath the surface and cuts the roots away from below the crown. Really effective on crab grass, and if you've ever tried to hand pull a patch of that in dry red clay, you know what a feat that is. I wiped out a lot of grasses, wild morning glories and red root pigweed in the garden. I will have to see if the pigweed comes back from its taproot as it often does. But it won't take any effort to wipe it out again.

The tool lies flush with the soil and you move it back and forth, cutting both ways. It takes less energy than a chop hoe. The motion is much like vacuuming or wiping clean a chalkboard. The soil surface is only disturbed shallowly.

One half of my overgrown raised bed done... Big, tough weeds! This would have taken me 1-2 hours to hand pull and I would have been covered in sweat and dirt.

This bed was done yesterday, in the same shape as the one above. Everything is good and dead (except that one by the fence I missed).

Part of the garden I worked on yesterday. The 6" head gets in and around the sunflowers closely, but doesn't dig deep enough to hurt their roots.

Nasty patch of crabgrass...

30 seconds later it is gone!

I have some rocks in my garden, mostly pebbles and sandstone. The tool is very well made, in the USA no less, top notch materials. After using it quite a bit the past 2 days, it is still sharper than any of my kitchen knives. I sharpen my garden tools on the bench grinder or angle grinder if they need it. I've used it on mulch, sod, loamy amended soil and packed clay. Worked great on it all. I am not sore either, like I would have been from hoeing all that. Happy, happy, happy!

 

[Beekissed]

All I can add to that is a sound "AMEN!"

 

[thistlebloom]

I have a lot of rocks, I mean really a lot, and it actually doesn't do that well in heavy rocks. It does work great in the chips I have around the blueberrys though. And I've used it in a loamy bed at work and it's really efficient at slicing through the weeds in that type of soil.

My 8" one is coming Monday, we'll see if that helps in the gravelly rocky stuff I have, but I mainly got it for work, to make short work of large beds.

 

[seedcorn]

@thistlebloom what about grass? I'd think that grass would just regenerate from roots. Mi e does when tilled or pulled out. I have 4 different species of grass. Think I brought 3 home from work.

 

[thistlebloom]

@thistlebloom what about grass? I'd think that grass would just regenerate from roots. Mi e does when tilled or pulled out. I have 4 different species of grass. Think I brought 3 home from work.

I think this is not a permanent solution to grass. Especially the runner types that root again at joints. But what is, other than pulling every single root or using herbicide?

At one job I have poa annua, a major pain as it has clumpy roots and goes to seed practically as soon as it emerges. It blows in off the lawns, so it's never going away, and I have done major warfare with it. Now I just consider it job security and routinely scuffle it out. Problem is, the stirrup hoe may pop over some of them,
( or it's operator error ) but it bugs me to work on them, rake the debris and still see tiny clumps standing there flipping me off and producing seed at light speed. That's what I'm hoping to resolve with the 8" Rogue. It's sharper and a different action than the stirrup so I'm imagining it will be more thorough.

But grasses are just going to require diligence and keeping after them before they get real established. That's so no matter what though, I think.

 

[thistlebloom]

Is it just me or are @journey11 's image invisible?

 

[Beekissed]

Is it just me or are @journey11 's image invisible?

I can see them, T, so it may be just your viewing device?

I'm with you on the grass removal. It doesn't cure the runner grasses but it sure does make it easier to keep them cut out of the garden. It helps me keep on top of the Bermuda and the crab grass without having to bend over and pull, pull, pull to remove it. As far as I know, there's no permanent fix on those but this hoe has definitely helped me stay ahead of it.

 

[ninnymary]

I wish I had weeds so that I could get that fancy toy.

Mary

 

[henless]

Mary, I'll ship you some bermuda grass. Then you can have all the weeds you want for the rest of your life.

By the way, I plan on ordering one myself.