The Southern Agrarian

Southern Agrarianism and the culture of the Old South

Category: Garden (Page 1 of 6)

Transplanting Seedlings

January 26, 2020 / / 2 Comments

Red cabbage and Romaine Lettuce seedlings ready for transplanting

While direct seeding is probably the most common way of starting a garden, there are some major advantages to starting your seedlings in a tray and then transplanting them once they have gotten to the right stage.

  • Very little seed is wasted.
  • Thinning can be done while comfortably sitting at a bench or table.
  • By starting Spring crops before the last killing frost, harvest comes several weeks earlier.
  • Beat the bugs. Insect pests arrive when plenty of food is normally available to them. By planting earlier than normal, you can harvest while pest pressure is still low.
  • Aesthetics – There is just something very rewarding about looking out over your garden and seeing full, straight, evenly spaced rows. It is generally easier with transplants than with direct seeding.

Let’s look at the process, step by step:

Seed tray, seeds, and soil. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Fill the seed tray with seed starting soil. Unless you’ve got a very large garden, you may find that just getting pre-mixed seed starting soil is best. Make sure that the soil is moist before adding seeds! Press it in firmly, then smooth it off. Use something to make the hole to receive the seeds at the proper depth. I find that the end of a “Sharpie” marker works well for most seeds.

Seeds will sprout, then grow under lights until ready to transplant. Keep the plants close to the light source. I use a timer to give them about 16 hours of light per day. Experiment to see what works best for you. Check them regularly and don’t let them dry out.

When it’s time to transplant, allow the seedlings to get fairly dry so that they are easier to work with. Use a dowel about the size of the drain holes to push the seedlings out and lay them in a tray for easier handling. The flat end of a cheap ballpoint pen works pretty well. This is where you’ll be glad you packed the soil in the cells nice and firmly.

The seed trays have grooves in the sides to help guide the roots straight downward rather than allowing them to wrap around into a ball.

I use a knife to open up a hole for the transplant, and a “garden scooter” that I found at a yard sale to make it easier.

Nice straight, even rows of plants is a beautiful sight. Be sure to water it well immediately after planting and for the next several days until the roots get better established.

A few more notes:

  • My standard spacing for most crops is 12″ between plants, and 24″ between rows. Larger plants, such as tomatoes and eggplant, are spaced wider.
  • The seed trays I use are available from Hoss Tools, which is where I get most of my garden tools. These are the 162 cell trays with the Heavy Duty Bottom Trays. They are not cheap, but they are incredibly rugged, and will probably last long enough to be passed down to your grandchildren if given reasonable care. The Bottom Trays may seem like just an added expense, but they are very helpful and well worth it. If you’re just getting started, you might want to start off with another cheaper type of tray; eventually, though, I have no doubt that you’ll end up getting some of these Hoss Tool trays.
  • Once the seeds have sprouted and sent down their roots, you can water from the bottom up. This is where the Heavy Duty Bottom Trays come in handy. Make sure that you water from the top until all the seeds have sprouted and put down roots before you start bottom watering.
  • Be sure to read up on what you will be planting. Not all plants will tolerate transplanting very well, so they work better if direct seeded.  Some examples of plants that generally do NOT do well with transplanting are beans, corn, and okra. I have done reasonably well transplanting even those plants that are not recommended for it, but as a general rule, follow the planting guidelines unless you just want to experiment (which I highly recommend!).
  • I try to always plant a few “spares” between the rows, or somewhere else in the garden. These are used to replace the ones that don’t survive the transplanting – I like neat, full rows.
  • I mentioned earlier to make sure that the soil is damp before adding it to the trays. If it is too dry, surface tension will not allow the water to penetrate the dry soil, and your seedlings will shrivel and die for lack of water – even though you are “watering” them regularly (see photo below). You want the soil to be just damp enough that you can squeeze it into a ball and have it stay in that shape. You might be able to squeeze a drop or two of water out of it, but you don’t want it much wetter than that.

This is what happens when the soil going into the trays is too dry. Surface tension prevents the water from going into the soil and reaching the roots.

Just a reminder – links on this site are NOT “affiliate” links, nor is there any type of financial incentive or compensation for anything mentioned here. If it’s mentioned, it’s because I use it myself. If I don’t like something, I’ll make that clear also. I do this because I enjoy writing these posts, and I receive no monetary benefit of any sort for what I write.

Tool Review – SoilSaver Composter

December 15, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Composting is pretty much standard for anyone with any kind of garden. It’s part of the natural cycle – the soil provides the nourishment that provides the crops, and we then return what we don’t use back to the soil, along with whatever other organic matter we can add. I’ve gone through several different types of composting systems, but my current one – the SoilSaver composter – does just what a composter is designed to do, and it does it well.

What I’ve used previously
ꔷ The old school standard that our family used when I was growing up was just called a “Tomato Ring”. It was a piece of fence in a circle about three or four feet in diameter that held leaves and whatever else was available. They worked, but only if you kept it watered and turned over; it was a rather labor-intensive system and was too quick to dry out.
ꔷ Next was a rotating drum system. In theory, this should be ideal – but it wasn’t. After numerous attempts, I found that every single batch would become anaerobic – it was not getting enough air mixed in, and it would become a slimy, putrid mess. A rotating drum with enough ventilation would apparently be too porous and lose its contents when being turned.
ꔷ After that was a round plastic composter that had an open bottom. This one worked well. The open bottom prevented water from accumulating, while allowing it to remain wet enough to decompose. It worked great until the side split and it had to be scrapped.

The SoilSaver (Amazon link) is what I am using now, and have been for the past three months; based on that, I added a second one a month ago. The SoilSaver is well-designed and sturdy when properly assembled and set up. One of the keys to “properly assembled” is following the instructions when it says that it must be set up on a flat level surface. The first time I set one up, the ground was not flat enough, and the top would not fit on very well. Removing the contents, leveling the ground beneath it (i.e., actually reading and following the instructions), then filling it back up made all the difference. The top now fits neatly and closes securely.

Nothing is perfect, and the SoilSaver is no exception. It is assembled with plastic nuts and bolts, and it comes with a wrench to tighten them down. It doesn’t take much to over-torque and strip them. They really ought to include a few extra of the plastic nuts and bolts – it couldn’t cost more than a penny or two extra. That’s it – the only thing I could find to criticize about it. Assembly is fast and easy, and it is designed to make assembly pretty much foolproof. When the sides are assembled, it is rather unstable when carrying it, so it’s best to put it together pretty close to where you’ll be using it.

While we’re on the topic of compost bins, a “must have” tool is the Yard Butler Compost Aerator (Amazon link). I first learned of this tool after seeing one being used at a demonstration garden at our county Ag Center. You’ve got to keep things mixed up and aerated, and this tool makes it fast and easy. I’ve read some reviews complaining that, after a while, the “wings” get rusted in place and it no longer works. Nonsense. Any tool needs to be kept clean and oiled if you expect it to work well and to last, and this is no exception. I keep mine in the tool shed when I’m not using it, and I always wash it off when I’m finished with it, and if I see any rust starting to form, a drop of oil is all it takes. As my father liked to say, “Take care of your tools, and they’ll take care of you.” I have been using mine regularly for a number of years, and it works just as well now as when I first got it. Highly recommended.

What comes in the box.

Yard Butler Compost Aerator.

Wasteland To Garden

November 17, 2019 / / 11 Comments

November 2019

March 2017 – New garden area with cow manure added, and part of the peat moss added. Note the barren soil in the foreground – even weeds had a hard time growing here.

Can wasteland that will just barely support a few weeds, be turned into productive garden space? Two and a half years ago, I set about to answer that question.

The Wasteland to Garden experiment is going to take longer than I imagined it would, but in the end, I should end up with an additional 600 square feet of productive garden space where I used to just have little more than white sand. If this continues to improve, it will demonstrate that anyone can have a nice garden if they are willing to put in the time, work, and resources to make it happen.

The main problem was that there was almost no organic matter in that area. Rain water would just run right through with nothing to absorb and hold it, leaving it dry shortly after even a good rain. In addition, with nothing to feed earthworms and microorganisms, it was not part of the living ecosystem of the soil that plants depend on. Mixing in large quantities of organic matter is key to making that soil come alive, but it takes more than that. It takes time – time for the living part of the soil to reproduce and become established.

I don’t know this as fact, but I suspect that the physical makeup of the original soil is such that this area will need to be regularly used as garden area in order to keep the level of organic matter up and to replace the nutrients that get washed down below the root zone.

Below this post is the original post from March 2017. Some of the changes since the original post:

  • The fig tree (the near-leafless branches in the upper left part of the 2017 photo) was dug up and replanted in another area and is doing far better.
  • The size was expanded to 14′ x 44′ (from 11′ x 19′)
  • In March 2019, a layer of compost about 2″ deep was added and tilled in.
  • Several gardens were attempted, including a Three Sisters garden with corn, beans, and Seminole Pumpkin. Results were less than impressive, but still a huge improvement over what it was two and a half years ago. Everything grown was tilled into the soil at the end of its season.
  • Sweet potatoes (Centennial) were added at one end of the garden, mainly because I had some that needed to be relocated. They have done very well there.
  • Ground cover fabric was added to surround the garden area to help keep weeds from encroaching from the sides. It is held in place with weights, rather than being staked, so that it can be tilled right up to the edge on the garden side, and mowed right up to the edge on the grass side.
  • A few weeks ago, I added one pallet load (65 cubic feet) of top soil, and tilled it in (photo above). About 30 cubic feet of top soil had been added a month earlier.
  • Earlier this week, I plowed one furrow using a Hoss Wheel Hoe with plow attachment, and planted some potatoes that had been bought for eating, but sprouted in the pantry.

In the next few weeks, when seed potatoes are available locally, I will plant several rows of Yukon Gold. I will probably be starting some romaine lettuce and Golden Acre cabbage in seed trays and then transplanting them. This will be the first “full” garden planted in this test plot.

At this point, it is clear to me that even the most barren, sterile land can be turned into productive land – IF enough organic matter is added. Another important point is that this takes time – not just in hours of work, but years to build up the microorganisms that turn sterile dirt into living soil. I am starting to really understand that good soil is much more than simply chemical and physical components, but rather a complex living ecosystem that must be carefully nourished over time.

Another important lesson learned was that, while getting compost may be a bit cheaper by the dump truck load, the job isn’t finished until it is spread. Evenly distributing a dump truck load of compost required a tractor, and still it was not as even as it should be. Getting top soil in bags made it much simpler to evenly spread it across the garden.

Southern Agrarianism is about a deep appreciation for the soil. It is about nourishing and caring for that soil and the understanding that, with careful stewardship and work, that soil will provide our families with fresh, wholesome food, and our children will truly understand where food comes from. It is sad that so many urban people have no real understanding of what it takes to put food on their plate – an understanding that is deep in the hearts of Southern Agrarians.

Compost by the truck load may be a bit less expensive, but much harder to spread evenly. Part of this had to be moved from the main garden to the test area. Lesson learned.

 

 

Original post from March 2017:

(Photos omitted)

As much as I expanded my garden over the past several months, I still ran out of room. The solution? Turn an unused part of the backyard into garden. The problem is that this unused part of the yard is so infertile that even weeds have a hard time growing there. That makes this more of an experiment than just a routine garden project. Here’s what I’ve done:

  1. Used the BCS Two-wheel Tractor with tiller attachment to rototill the area. I went over it twice in both directions. I raked and picked up the assorted roots and weeds (and a beautiful piece of heavy green glass from some long-ago bottle).
  2. Watered it very heavily. In addition to adding much-needed moisture, this greatly improves the ability to work the soil.
  3. The next day, I added cow manure and peat moss. It was mixed in using a Mantis tiller with the tines reversed so that it just mixes things up without digging deeply.
  4. More watering, with the ducks “helping”.
  5. Marked out the rows and planted Seminole Pumpkin seeds.

 

I had planted some Seminole Pumpkin seeds in the main garden area, but decided I’d rather put more okra in. Seminole Pumpkin can take up a huge amount of space as it spreads out. It won’t hurt if it spreads out in this new garden area, but it would have shaded out other plants in the main garden area.

As I said, this is really an experiment to see what it takes to turn a small (11′ x 19′) patch of barren ground into a fertile garden. We’ll take another look at it later in the year. In the mean time, the main garden is starting to have green where there was once only dirt.

A lesson to be learned here is that if I can turn this piece of barren sand into a productive garden, then anyone can find a place to start one.

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Learning from Failure – Blossom End Rot

May 29, 2017 / / 13 Comments

When I started my garden this year, I knew that I needed to add calcium to the soil – or at least I was pretty sure that it was needed. Now that things are ripening, it turns out that I was right. The tomatoes and peppers are both on track to be a near-total loss due to blossom end rot. I have beautiful red tomatoes, but when they are turned over, what you see is a big black spot of rotting tomato. The peppers have a rotten brown spot on the end.

I had tried to locate a local source for pelletized gypsum, but couldn’t. I should have looked harder. I could have used a special tomato fertilizer, but that is sold in small containers that would have cost far too much to fertilize the whole garden. I have since found a source that is about an hour away, and will be stocking up on it for next year.

The key points:

  • Never assume that things will always turn out the way they are supposed to turn out. I’ve had great luck with both tomatoes and peppers, but in different soil.
  • Know what will grow well in your garden as it is now. If you’re depending on what your garden produces, don’t waste space on “nice to have” crops. Stick with what you know will work.
  • It all comes from the soil. If it needs something, get it and add it.

Tools For The Garden

May 20, 2017 / / 5 Comments

Gardening can be very time-consuming, hard work – unless you have the right tools for the job. The right tools can make the work fast and easy, and they can allow someone to reasonably produce enough food to feed their family where it would not be possible without them.

The top photo shows my current collection of manual garden tools. This does not include the BCS two-wheel tractor and implements that are stored in another area. I tend to collect garden tools like some folks collect guns – better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. One can never have too many garden tools. I even have a broad fork – a beast of a tool that I might even need some day. In future posts, we’ll look at some of the more interesting tools in my shed.

The second photo shows two extremes in tools. One item is a Rogue Field Hoe (reviewed here) – a great example of a high quality tool that should last a lifetime or more. The crude stick with a metal spike driven through it is not an ancient relic from an archaeological site or something sold to tourists. It is a hand hoe that is in routine use today in Africa. Specifically, this one was purchased at a village market in Sierra Leone, West Africa by missionaries there that I work with. This could correctly be called state of the art technology in most of Africa today. Yes, there are certainly tractors and modern tools in use there also; however, those are imported. When it comes to tools made by the locals, this pretty much says it all. There are some lessons to be learned in this.

Western hoe and African hoe – both manufactured about the same time, and both routinely used in their respective areas.

OK. What’s the point of this post? Ask yourself how you would produce enough food to feed yourself and your family if you had to work the soil to feed them. Stored food doesn’t count – that eventually runs out. Power equipment is great, but it doesn’t count either – fuel very quickly runs out. What you’re left with is muscle powered tools. Most of the world will reply with rolled eyes and a smirk. “It couldn’t happen here” they would say. Perhaps they are right. I certainly hope they are right; however, I’m not going to bet my family’s life on it. Do you?

One Acre Makeover

April 8, 2017 / / 2 Comments

At some point last year, it became clear to me that I needed to make some major changes here on our one acre homestead. If your place is already exactly what it should be, then you might want to skip reading this post. Otherwise, perhaps you’ll find a bit of inspiration here.

The Problem:

  • The garden was not set up for efficiently maintaining it. As the years start adding up for me, making it easy to maintain becomes more important.
  • The garden irrigation system had underground pipes through the garden area, and that’s a really bad idea when using a powerful roto-tiller. Running over a pipe creates quite an interesting fountain in the garden.
  • The trees that provided some shade were old water oaks. In this part of the country, they are really more like giant weeds. They don’t produce anything and they tend to rot from the inside out (just as nations and cultures do), and it goes unnoticed until a storm comes along and blows it over – sometimes taking other things with it.
  • The bee hives that I set in the garden were OK until the bees got in a cranky mood at the same time that I needed to work in the garden. Keeping bees means you’re going to get stung once in a while, but you never really get used to it no matter what anyone says.

 

The Solution:

  • The patchwork garden design became a single rectangular block. The duck pen, the bee hives, the bananas, and the pineapple patch – gone. The duck pen was moved back out of the garden area, the pineapple plants were transplanted to a single row along the perimeter fence, the banana plants cut down and dug up, and the bee hives were moved away from the garden.
  • The irrigation system now consists of two rows of overlapping sprinklers along the sides such that every part of the garden is covered by at least two sprinklers. All the irrigation pipe and one electrical conduit were removed from the garden area.
  • All of the oaks were removed. It wasn’t cheap, but it takes heavy equipment and it needed to be done. With the yard now opened up, I planted peaches, apples, pears, pomegranates, persimmons, figs, avocado, and plums. I would rather spend my time here watching the young fruit trees grow up than watching the old water oaks rot and die. At this stage of life, watching the young grow up is one of life’s greatest joys. Think grandchildren.
  • The bee hives were moved to the side of the house. It is an area that is otherwise unused, and there are no doors on that end of the house. The bees are happy and so are we. I also reduced the number of hives from ten down to three – plenty enough for pollination and some honey.

 

Future posts will detail things like planting the fruit trees, the bee hives, etc. For now, I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

 

The Water Oaks come out


The buried pipe comes out


Banana plants are next to be removed


Stakes mark where a row of fruit trees will be planted


Fruit trees being planted

Grow What You DON’T Eat

March 31, 2017 / / 10 Comments

Cotton from the garden

Fruits and vegetables are what most folks think of when they think of gardening. There are, however, other things that are good to grow, but are not for the dinner table. We’ll go into each of these in more detail in future posts, but I wanted to get you thinking about what non-food plants you might want to try growing.

  • Winter Rye – Used to add organic matter to the soil. It also helps control the nematode population, protects the top surface layer of soil, shades out weeds. I had my garden planted in this over the past Winter. It was used as a calibration crop to compare different areas of the garden and to add organic matter to the soil when it was tilled under in the Spring.
  • Cotton – Mainly just a fun crop for most of us. On the other hand, it is a vital component in society and open-pollinated seed stock must be preserved. Each year, I grow a few cotton plants just to keep a supply of seeds and to show visitors where their clothing comes from. The variety I grow – Red Foliated White – is a beautiful plant. The cotton yield from this open-pollinated variety is nowhere near as high as what commercially-grown cotton yields, but I’m not interested in growing commercial hybrids.
  • Luffa Gourd – Sold in stores as Luffa Sponges, they are great for scrubbing in the shower. They also make a great utility scrubber. The very young fruit and flowers can be eaten, but I’ve never tried eating it. They produce numerous beautiful yellow flowers, so we have them planted along the front fence this year.
  • Velvet Bean – This vine was a very commonly grown plant along with corn in the days before cheap fertilizer. It fixes Nitrogen in the soil, supports tall plants in high winds, and shades out weeds with its kudzu-like growth pattern. An interesting side note is its use as a treatment for Parkinson’s Disease.
  • Gourds – Used to make bird houses, water dippers, crafts, and other items.
  • Moringa – This one is a sort-of-food plant (actually a tree). High in vitamins and minerals, the leaves are dried, ground into a powder, then used as a food supplement. This is a very fast growing tree and is often kept pruned to bush size to make harvesting easier.
  • Marigolds – In addition to it’s beautiful flowers, it repels insects when planted among other plants.

What have you grown that isn’t for the dinner table?

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From Yard To Garden

March 19, 2017 / / 5 Comments

New garden area with cow manure added, and part of the peat moss added. Note the barren soil in the foreground – even weeds have a hard time growing here.

As much as I expanded my garden over the past several months, I still ran out of room. The solution? Turn an unused part of the backyard into garden. The problem is that this unused part of the yard is so infertile that even weeds have a hard time growing there. That makes this more of an experiment than just a routine garden project. Here’s what I’ve done:

  1. Used the BCS Two-wheel Tractor with tiller attachment to rototill the area. I went over it twice in both directions. I raked and picked up the assorted roots and weeds (and a beautiful piece of heavy green glass from some long-ago bottle).
  2. Watered it very heavily. In addition to adding much-needed moisture, this greatly improves the ability to work the soil.
  3. The next day, I added cow manure and peat moss. It was mixed in using a Mantis tiller with the tines reversed so that it just mixes things up without digging deeply.
  4. More watering, with the ducks “helping”.
  5. Marked out the rows and planted Seminole Pumpkin seeds.

 

Ducks just can’t pass up the opportunity to play in the water.

I had planted some Seminole Pumpkin seeds in the main garden area, but decided I’d rather put more okra in. Seminole Pumpkin can take up a huge amount of space as it spreads out. It won’t hurt if it spreads out in this new garden area, but it would have shaded out other plants in the main garden area.

As I said, this is really an experiment to see what it takes to turn a small (11′ x 19′) patch of barren ground into a fertile garden. We’ll take another look at it later in the year. In the mean time, the main garden is starting to have green where there was once only dirt.

A lesson to be learned here is that if I can turn this piece of barren sand into a productive garden, then anyone can find a place to start one.

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What’s In The Garden Now? June 1, 2016

June 2, 2016 / / 22 Comments

Eggplant in the foreground and tomatoes in the background.

Eggplant in the foreground and tomatoes in the background.


I’m always interested in hearing what others are growing in their gardens, so this post is about what is in my garden now. But first, a note about what my priorities are and how I choose what to grow:

  • Sustainability – Everything that I plant in my garden is open pollinated. Savings seeds is just as important to me as the vegetables that go on the table. Hybrids are not even considered when picking varieties.
  • Resilience – Rather than start with “What do I like?” and then try to make it grow here, my strategy is to ask “What will dependably grow here?” and then find ways to prepare it so that I enjoy it. (See the section on Squash below for any example).
  • Organic – I avoid the use of any chemical pesticides or herbicides. I’m not fanatical about it, but it’s been many years since I used any chemical pesticides on the garden. When needed, I use BT and Neem Oil, which are both organic pesticides that are safe to apply immediately before picking and eating.

Eggplant – This is a hot-weather favorite that keeps on producing through all but the very hottest summer days. In the past, I have always gone with Black Beauty, but this year I am growing the Florida High Bush variety. My hope is that, based on the description I read, the plants will be stronger and less likely to be blown over in a wind, yet still have the good taste and texture of the Black Beauty. This variety was developed in the 1940’s for commercial fields, and the objective was to keep the fruit up off the ground. So far, so good.

Tomato – What’s a garden without tomatoes? Several years ago, I did some fairly extensive testing for taste, quantity, and general quality. I grew several varieties and kept careful records. I counted the yield from each individual plant, and I wrote a number on the individual fruits and gave them to friends and relatives and asked them to rate them by various criteria. The overall winner was Homestead 24. That has become my standard tomato variety and I see no reason to change. There will be some other varieties that may taste slightly better or have other desirable qualities, but – all things considered – the Homestead 24 beats them all.

Bell Peppers – I’m trying a new variety this year: Chinese Giant. As the name implies, these are a very large fruited pepper. I have read that if thinned (something I haven’t tried yet), they can reach 5″ – 6″ in length and width. My previous variety was California Wonder; they were good, but I wanted to try something new.

Okra – Another great hot-weather producer. This year is a test of a strain of Clemson Spineless called “Heavy Hitter”. In the past, I always went with regular Clemson Spineless, but when I read about Heavy Hitter, I had to give it a try. Heavy Hitter has a different branching pattern which results in more branches – and thus more fruit – from each plant. It was developed by Mr. Ron Cook in Oklahoma. If it works as I think it will, I’ll be doing whatever I can to help promote this strain of okra. This was planted quite late since I wanted to put it in some new ground that had been lawn up until a few months ago.

Squash – I suppose this one doesn’t really belong here since I turned the entire crop under two days ago. In previous years, I decided “No more squash” because they were always ruined by worms boring holes and ruining the fruit. Stubbornly, I wanted to give it one more try. The first few were great, but then the worms came (I avoid the use of pesticides wherever possible). Not wanting to feed the worms, I used my BCS tractor with the roto-tiller attachment to turn that part of the garden into dirt. Next year, I’ll go back to planting Seminole Pumpkin and use it as a squash.

Cotton – I like planting cotton every once in a while just to have it. This year, I planted Red Foliated White Cotton that I got from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. The stem parts of the plants are red – an interesting color in the garden – and it produces a short staple white cotton. What do I do with it? Not much. It is just interesting to grow, and there are plenty of folks who have never seen cotton growing.

So – what do you have in your garden now?

Cotton blossom, Red Foliated White Cotton.

Cotton blossom, Red Foliated White Cotton.

Getting To Know The Scuffle Hoe

May 18, 2016 / / 4 Comments
Three Scuffle Hoes

Three Scuffle Hoes. The one on the right is made by Rogue Hoe and is built to last a lifetime.

My cousin introduced me to the Scuffle Hoe, and I’m grateful that he did. The Scuffle Hoe is a rather specialized tool. It does an excellent job of getting rid of small, just-emerging weeds in loose soil. The sandy soil that we have here in this part of The South is ideal for using this tool – especially when it is dry.

The Scuffle Hoe is used by sliding the blade just a bit below the surface to cut the weeds off below the ground level. If the soil is dry, that makes it easier to use, and the weeds dry out very quickly so they can’t take root again. It is much easier to control than a regular field hoe when working close to garden plants. Think of it as a maintenance tool intended to keep your garden clean. Use a regular field hoe for the big stuff.

There are two basic types of Scuffle Hoe, and they both work the same way. One uses a blade (shown on the left in the above photo, also known as a stirrup hoe) and the other is a triangular blade. So far, both have held up well, but I suspect that the triangular design is the tougher, more durable of the two.

If you haven’t used one before, make it a point to get one and try it out. If you have very hard packed soil or heavy clay, wait until you’ve improved the soil before trying to use one. If you start out with a clean garden, a Scuffle Hoe will make it easy to keep it clean.

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