The Hooke ‘n Crooke™

Last week I got a comment from an helpful guy call Scott at Holdredge Enterprises, LLC. It was about a couple of hoes they have on sale there. Of course Tom and I can’t recommend them because before Tom can give them his T-Rusty seal of approval we have to work with the product for a while so that we are sure that what we tell you about it is right and proper as we wouldn’t want you to go wasting your money. However I have looked closely at these tools and read what it says about them on the website and I have to say that I would be interested in trying one as the design looks good to me from what I can see of it and it’s not dissimilar to my favourite hoe. Anyway as I did a series on hoes I thought I would pass this on to you so here is a link to their site so you can check it out for yourselves. This is a company from the USA and I don't know if they ship abroad or not.

http://holdredgeenterprises.com/

Below are a couple of pictures of the hoes they offer, one is a hand hoe and the other a long handle hoe.

A Fruity Tip.

This is a little tip that I’m going to show you that makes life easier for me when picking fruit, Raspberries in particular. It doesn’t work so well with fruit that you pick while bending over, taller Black Currant bushes are another thing I’ve used it on with great success.

What I have in my hand is an ex-army ammo pouch.

This one clips on to my belt (which is covered by the shirt) that I wear all the time to hold up my trousers.

You could find something along the same lines to do the same job at a hiking store or similar. I like this one because I don’t need a separate belt also its pretty stiff canvas which as you can see doesn’t crush anything you put in there.

Then when you have it full all you need to do is take it off and tip the contents in to something larger and then set too and refill the pouch – hopefully many times over because I think most of us like our fresh soft fruits.

I’ve used this method for many years and find it handy not having to use one hand to hold a tray or whatever, it leaves both hands free for picking the fruit.

Fish & Chip Night.

As you can see my cup overflows with summer rain.

So I spent all day titivating the conservatory plants.

Vicki has just called to say she is on her way home with dinner which on a Friday is take-away fish and chips so I must not linger any longer, however tempting your company may be its nought compared to fish and chips.
Take care and have a great weekend,
Bob.

Newby Hall

MY NEWBY HALL PICTURE FOR TODAY

MY WORK BOOK

See to the sheep
Field
Misc
Thu 16/07/2009 08:00
Thu 16/07/2009 08:20
20 minutes
Checked and counted them.

See to the greenhouses
Greenhouses
Thu 16/07/2009 08:20
Thu 16/07/2009 08:55
35 minutes
Checked round and watered anything in need.

Cut the courtyard lawns
Courtyard
Public Gardens
Thu 16/07/2009 08:55
Thu 16/07/2009 09:45
50 minutes

Cutting the lawn
North Front
Public Gardens
Thu 16/07/2009 09:45
Thu 16/07/2009 10:15
30 minutes

Break for tea
Home
Misc
Thu 16/07/2009 10:15
Thu 16/07/2009 10:35
20 minutes

Mowing
Lawns
Main Garden
Thu 16/07/2009 10:35
Thu 16/07/2009 12:15
100 minutes
Took off 2 box full of grass.

Clearing up
Veg Garden
Walled Garden
Thu 16/07/2009 12:15
Thu 16/07/2009 12:45
30 minutes
Raked up all fallen apples and plums ready for mowing after lunch.

Pick up the grass cuttings
Misc
Thu 16/07/2009 12:30
Thu 16/07/2009 12:45
15 minutes
Picked up all the clipping from the mornings cutting.

Break for lunch
Home
Misc
Thu 16/07/2009 12:45
Thu 16/07/2009 13:30
45 minutes

Mowing
Lawns
Walled Garden
Thu 16/07/2009 13:30
Thu 16/07/2009 16:45
3.25 hours

Picking fruit
Veg Garden
Walled Garden
Thu 16/07/2009 16:45
Thu 16/07/2009 18:00
1.25 hours
Picked some Raspberries before the rain spoilt them.

Put away the tools and close the greenhouses
Potting Shed
Glasshouses
Thu 16/07/2009 18:00
Thu 16/07/2009 18:15
15 minutes

NOTES
1) I took off more grass this week than any other cut so far this year, by rights grass growing should be starting to slow down now.

2) As I have no more pictures of Barnsdale Gardens for my picture of the day I will now show you some of Newby Hall where Vicki and I visited last March.

COMMENTS FROM THE POTTING SHED

sara I tell you what, I had to burn some boxes from the hall once and I was standing there watching the fire when there was this almighty bang and something whizzed past me and hit the chicken pen. I nearly jumped out of my skin. On further investigation I discoved an exploded spray can. So you never know when you will be standing next to a bomb fire.

weaver of grass I try and compost what I can, I would like a big shreader so I could put loads more stuff on there then.

Lazy Bob.

Hello everyone, I had a good day today. I started off by doing some potting up because it was raining or at least it was to wet to make a start on the mowing. I start potting on some cuttings and then there were some pot plants in need of climbing the potting up ladder and to finish off I saw this Rosemary plant I had raised from a seedling and I suddenly got the urge to try and train it as a standard. I can’t recall having seen one as a standard although if it can be done no doubt it has and if it can’t be done for some reason then I guess I’m wasting my time trying.

The Rosemary, it may appear to be just a stick but I dream of a great future for it!

As things had dried up by tea break I cut the main lawn and all the public lawns. Mowing the lawns always seems to be a bit of a challenge one way or another, (which is what I enjoy), usually because it’s such a close call trying to get it all done in the day, last week of course there was the tremendous heat to contend with, wrestling with big bertha on the main lawn had me sweating cobs as she is definitely a heavy metal kinda girl. This week the challenge was to get done what I had to do before the next shower brought things to a halt. I got the main lawn cut but ended up finishing the courtyard with the rain bouncing down. Thankfully it was now time for lunch so I was able to get a change of shirt. This afternoon I spend sitting out in the sun in the deck chair in the potting shed yard listening to music picking off black currants.

I always used to pick them straight off the bush but someone told me you can prune off the shoots with the currants on and pick them that way. I was a bit dubious at first, it seemed too easy but it seems to work, the fact that I was picking off berries today proves it as I did the same thing last year, and I’m not boasting when I say this but since I came here the currant bushes have improved no end so I must be doing something right. Of course you have to be sensible, I don’t wade in hacking the whole bush down, I do prune back to a new shoot and all the usual stuff. If I remember right the currants are produced on new shoots put up for the base of the plant so removing the old wood with the berries on encourages the new shoot so I think that’s basically how it works. Anyway I enjoyed my lazy afternoon in the sun. By the way red and white currants grow different to black currants so don’t try this with either of them or you would probably have no fruit next year.

Old Hoe & Pendulum Hoe.

I don't have much time to spend on here today as its my birthday and we're going back home for the weekend when Vicki gets finished work. However I will just finish off the series on my hoes ready to start on something different for next week. I'm not going to rate these hoes and only show them out of interest. The first one is the very first hoe I bought back in 1971 and as you can probably tell it hasn't had a great deal of use mainly because its what I call a negative hoe in that it keeps skipping out of the ground due to the angle of the blade pointing sky wards. For this hoe to work for me I would need to be about seven and a half foot tall. I guess if I shortened the shaft a lot it might work for me but when I already have the perfect hoe there is not much incentive to try and make this one work.

The second hoe I can't rate yet simply because its new to me this year so need to test it more to see how it last. It seems to work well enough. The bold claim for this hoe is that it deters slugs and snails because of the copped blade. This type of hoe is called a Pendulum Hoe due to the fact that the head pivots back and forth as you use it so no matter whether you're pushing or pulling it's always positive and bites in to the ground. It has a sharp blade and is good for working between rows and around plants.

Flat Hoe.

Could this possibly be the best hoe in the world? Well, probably not but to me it’s without a doubt my favourite hoe. I know this kind of hoe as a ‘flat hoe’ and the only bad thing about this hoe as far as you guys are concerned is that Wolf Garten Tools don’t seem to make it anymore – go figure that one out if you can. For that reason I only show you this because no doubt someone else makes one and it’s the actual design rather than the brand that makes this hoe my favourite. For me this particular hoe has a neutral feel in that it neither tries to leave the soil nor digs to deep, this makes it very controllable. It will deal equally well with both small weeds and big tall over grown stuff. With it just having the single leg joining the blade there is a minimum of dirt pick up and if you turn it over you can use it this way to work over the soil like a mini spade. I also use it a lot this way to work the soil back away from the grass edging. You can of course do the same with the Dutch hoe that I showed you last night but for some reason the flat hoe does it better. This is actually the second of these hoes I’ve bought. After using the first one for a while and liked it so much I bought this one and then set about halving the blade on the original hoe so making an half size version. I’ve had this hoe for the best part of 20 years now so durability is not an issue and this applies to all Wolf tools. The only thing that has ever broken are a couple of wooden shafts and this was probably due more to misuse than bad quality. So for this type of hoe I will give 10 out of 10, for usability of this particular hoe I will give 9 out of 10, it isn’t quite perfect in that I would like the union with the blade to be more streamlined. As far as I’m concerned the only other way to improve on this design would to make it out of copper.

There is some dirt pick up with this hoe due in part to the bulky union with the blade.

This hoe was the same but has had one side of the blade removed to make a smaller version.

Here you can see the hoe flipped over to tidy along the edge of the border - now you know how Bob gets those neat edges!

Dutch Hoe.

The hoe that I’m going to show you tonight is called a Dutch Hoe, again the one I have is made by Wolf Garten Tools but most garden centres will stock variations of this hoe as it’s a common design. I can only speak for the one I have in this post, and I have to say that this is a good hoe, the one I have bites in to the soil well so is good even in compact soil. This only works as a push hoe but that’s no great hardship. The blade is quite thick compared to the last hoe so does benefit from sharpening from time to time but if you can’t manage this then it’s not a real problem. As with any hoe I’ve used there is some dirt pick up but this doesn’t affect the way the hoe works so isn’t a problem. Although as you can see the blade is clean and shiny, if it were rusty then I think soil pick up might be more of a problem. As a hoe for general purpose work I would give it 7 out of 10 and for usability I will give it 8 out of 10. It’s a fine hoe to use and I only give it 8 because it doesn’t quite match up to the hoe I’m going to show you tomorrow.

A small amount of dirt pick-up but this amount doesn't affect the performance of the hoe.

Push Pull Hoe

As far as I can make out this hoe is called a ‘push pull weeder’. As the name suggests it can be used in either direction which makes it a fast hoe if there is plenty of room between the plants like for instance in a rose or shrub border. I also us this hoe when I hoe gravel areas. It’s also good for working close to plants because of the side wings that denote the edge of the blade. Its light and the blade is thin and stays sharp. This is a good hoe and would be a great one if it were designed better. As it is it suffers badly from dirt pick up due to all its indentations, lumps and curves so much so that if you don’t keep on cleaning the dirt off it’s like weeding with a plank of wood. As a general purpose hoe I would not have any trouble recommending it and will award it 7 out of 10 and for usability I will be generous and give it 7 out of 10, I would give it more if it weren’t for the soil pick up also I don’t find it so good on hard ground or long weeds. Just one more thing, there is a smaller version of this hoe from Wolf Garten Tools.

In my opinion the underside of the blade should be flat so as to avoid dirt pick up. Dirt collects under the blade.
...and in all the other humps and hollows.


I'm not sure if you're a keen gardener or not Sara but anyone with a garden could do with a hoe, I use my hoe for several jobs besides weeding. I will show you what I get up to with my hoes some other time though.

I saw while watching the TV tonight that the Royal Mint are selling £5 coins for £5, if like me you're thinking there is nothing special about that deal wait till I tell you that carriage is £1.95. So if y'all want to get your £5 coins for £6.95 go to http://www.royalmint.com/ Personally though I'm going to wait until they put on a 2 for 1 offer. By the way, I think there is supposed to be something special about the £5 coin in question.

Draw Hoe.

The hoe I’m going to show you tonight is what I know as a ‘draw hoe’. It’s not a hoe I often use for weeding except for some rough hacking down type of weed clearing. For general hoeing I don’t find it gives the sort of finish that I like as it’s hard to hoe off all the weeds without walking all over them which is to be avoided if possible or you run the risk of re-planting them again. However it is useful for pulling soil up around the potatoes etc. when ridging them up. I would give this type of hoe 3 out of 10 for general weeding purposes. For usability of this particular hoe I would rate it well though and give it 9 out of 10 because the blade is sharp and soil build up is minimal and it feels nice enough to use.

Emily and Matron I know what you’re saying, I do chop the odd plant off now and again but it’s usually when I’m not looking what I’m doing rather than the fault of the hoe. Another thing I find that leads to plant decapitation is if you’re having to use to much force either because the ground is hard or the hoe is not right for you in some way. Try and stand with it on a flat piece of ground like I showed you in the pictures yesterday and see if it sits level on the floor. If you are a shorter person the shaft of the hoe may be too long for you. The hand that is doing all the pushing and pulling should be right at the end of the handle and the other hand is used to steer the hoe. If you find you have to hold the hoe part way down the handle with you push and pull hand then I think the handle is to long for you. Also don’t be afraid to sharpen you hoe because the easier it goes through the soil the more control you will have over it and therefore less mistakes you will make.