Among gardening short cuts, there's none better than the wheel hoe. I
first saw it in the book on Permaculture gardening by Nikolay Kurdyumov, Growing Vegetables with a Smile and knew I had to have one. Next year we’re planting a 200 square meter
patch of wildflowers, a cereal field and so on. My current approach to
gardening of spading over the bed, weeding out buttercups one by one, rotavating, replacing
lost soil with barrows of compost --- It's too much for one man. There has to be a better way.
Yesterday I cleared out the buttercup-infested wildflower
bed. First I scythed down the weeds to two inches. Then the wheel hoe
loosened the weeds and soil down to 4 inches. I raked the weeds up. A job that
normally takes half a day was finished in an hour. Plus the well-worked top
layer that is most fertile was preserved. Unlike the rotavator, the wheel hoe doesn't bury the weeds to where you can't find them.
Permaculture emphasizes working with the top 4 inches of soil.
You mulch it with weeds, hay, straw, cardboard, leaves --- whatever decomposes.
The soil’s fertility lies not in fertilizer but in the interconnecting pathways
created by roots, earthworms and other bugs --- the soil’s structure. Destroy
that by spading over the soil and no amount of fertilizer will help you. I was sceptical whether Permaculture, shown to
work in Australia
and Russia, can
work in Scotland
with our heavy, slug-infested clay soils. But why not try it anyway and save a
heap of work as a bonus. And so, this summer I mulched the veg beds with hay. I
put away the spade and brought out the wheel hoe.
The beauty of the wheel hoe is its efficiency in delivering
your effort where it is needed. This is a result of the handle design and the
wheel --- once again re-invented. In working a straight dutch hoe, you can’t deliver
the necessary force because of your unwieldy grip on a straight handle. Also, the bit is driven into
the ground rather than parallell to the ground. Trust me, it takes remarkably little
effort to plough up your land with a wheel hoe.
Where do you find one? Such a simple tool, once a common feature in gardens, is unfortunately not readily available. In the US
you can find one at Lehman’s, that sell Amish tools or at Valley Oak Tool Company, all
for about $275. In the UK ,
your only option, other than the antique tool store or ebay is the Swiss made Glaser for about £330. All that money for a hoe?
Along with my philosophy of getting a good product, cheap, I
opted for the Planet Whizbang hoe, and ordered it online. They sell you the metal hardware that makes up the hoe. You assemble it, find a
suitable wheel and you make the handles yourself. The kit costs about $100, plus $45 if
you want it shipped internationally. The design is excellent and durable. The hoe
works like a miracle. Particularly important are the right-angle handle grips that deliver your effort efficiently, to push the hoe along. Amber has attacked the weeds in our gravel path with it. I've prepared and planted new beds, hoed out weeds in no time. Meanwhile my petrol rotavator is gathering dust in the garage.
Give it a spin. See if the wheel hoe won’t transform your gardening too.
