Using a Garden Hoe for Maintaining Heavy Weeds

Why Should You Maintain Weeds?

It is important to maintain weeds in the vegetable garden because they can ultimately overrun the entire garden area if they are not controlled. The major issue with weeds in the garden is they compete for nutrients, water, soil, and space against plants that strongly need it for growth. If the plants do not get all the necessary nutrients they need then the plants will not be productive and overall become unhealthy in the garden. Weeds can also become a hiding place for diseases and pests that will end up destroying plants from growing throughout the season. To maintain the pesky weed pressures from taking over the garden, we prefer to grow cover crops. The cover crops contain different traits that will help improve not only the garden soil structure and erosion control but it will also suppress weed and pest pressures. We recommend using cover crops such as Buckwheat, Sunn Hemp, and Brown Top Millet for suppressing weeds in the vegetable garden. These cover crops are all warm-season crops so they work perfectly during the warmer months when it’s harder to grow other vegetables. We also like to use drip irrigation in the garden to reduce weed pressures. When using drip tape we can accurately supply water to the plant roots directly and decrease unnecessary watering where plants do not need it like between rows and along the edge of the vegetable garden.

Best Garden Hoe for Your Garden

On this week's episode, Travis is testing out the difference between a standard garden hoe and our push-pull hoe. In the garden, Travis has pigweed that has grown up pretty bad between his sunflower plants. In the South, pigweed is very prevalent and will grow in any kind of weather condition. The pigweed currently is about 8 to 12 inches tall and pretty thick in the garden. Travis is going to test which garden hoe is the best when it comes to removing the pigweed from the vegetable garden. With the traditional garden hoe, he has to lift the hoe and basically hack away at the ground. While this does works to displace the weeds, it also displaces a large amount of dirt that covers the weeds and we will end up having to come back in order to level the area out. However, with the push-pull hoe, it stays almost level with the soil and all Travis has to do is slide it back and forth. This garden hoe provides a smoother and more effective way to remove pigweed from the vegetable garden. Then, we simply take that dura rake and clean the area of any leftover weeds.

Push-Pull Hoe

With this v-shaped garden hoe, it allows for a quicker and more effective way to weed in the vegetable garden. The push-pull hoe contains a hardened steel blade that's sharp on all sides which allows you to cut the weeds in backward and forward directions. To effectively use the garden hoe, we push the hoe forward to cut the weed from the soil and backward to completely displace the entire weed in the vegetable garden. The push-pull hoe is perfect if you use drip irrigation because you can weed close to the lines without worrying about cutting into the drip tape. Overall, the push pull hoe is the best garden hoe because you can effectively get rid of all the weeds more fast and simple than a regular garden hoe.