3 Must-Have Hand Tools for the Garden & Homestead (DTube Daily Vlog)
This video highlights my 3 favorite hand tools on the homestead! Thanks to the contest presented by @offgrid-online that promoted this vlog. There are some great ideas, inspiration, community involvement and contests coming outta this account, check it out!
Difficult to choose!
We do the vast majority of the work on our homestead by hand and having the right tools is incredibly important. There's a lot of grunt work to do, and the right tools make ALL the difference. There are 3 tools that stand out to me, and the more I work the land, the deeper my appreciation of these tools is.
Hori Hori
This is a Japanese gardening tool that sees daily action. It is the ultimate multi-tool for many gardening tasks.
Hori translates as dig in Japanese and the name supposedly is an onomatopoeia for of sound digging. It has a stout handle and long pointed blade with both a solid and serrated cutting edge. It is useful for digging, lifting plants, weeding, cutting roots and bulbs, etching lines in soil and more. It is strong enough for heavy use but lithe enough for careful work around plants.
Serrated Sickle or Japanese rice knife
This tool was a gift from a Japanese Permaculture group that visited the ecovillage I was working at when Wren and I met.
It is a short slightly curved sickle that cuts plants like butter! Seriously, this thing is vicious. I use it all the time to cut grass, clover, a variety of herbs (aka weeds) and even young tree stems.
It is my mulch maker and mini mower. This is the main tool I use for hand managing our plants through chop and drop mulching. Our land is varied and rocky, and this tool makes the most sense. I like to use it while squatting to take it easy on my back and increase hip flexibility while getting intimate with the plants.
Grub Hoe
This was a big game changer for me. Clearing the land by hand is a TONNE of work.
I used to remove rocks, stumps, and stolons using a mattock, but this had me hunched over a lot. When I got this tool, I was stoked to see that I could do almost as much labor with less effort than the mattock. I do dig out the gnarly stolons of buckbrush (the most common herb we remove) and plenty of rocks from a fairly upright stance. This is also used for hilling plants, digging trenches and whatever other soil moving needs I have. If you're doing any kind of earthworks by hand this is an essential tool in your arsenal.
Hope this vlog is helpful to anyone who loves hand tools and plants. It took some time to figure out what tools are best for certain tasks and wanted to share with ya'll.
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Awesome post! Thanks for taking the time to write that great synopsis 😉 I bought a Hori Hori earlier this year and am in love with it. The fact that it has a ruler etched on the blade has made it invaluable while direct sowing seeds!
NIce, I love that you appreciate such a great tool. I've been "saving" a newer tool for just the right occasion ;) Glad you found value in the post.
that grub hoe looks pretty great, I just got a 2.5 lb mattock and it is great for roots and such, I have a hoe as well and it is ok but it is too light, that looks like a useful cross. I have recently gotten into using the hoe for weeding, it works well in well tilled soil but it could use a little more weight.
Ya, it is a great happy medium between the mattock and hoe. The grub hoe literally changed the way I worked. I can relate to the hoe being light, althogh colinear or stirrup hoes can be great tools for slicing weeds, depending on soil texture of course.
having the right tool for the job makes a world of difference. There is a guy who mentors and helps homesteaders on TV and he says if he could only have three tools on the homestead he would want a great big chainsaw, a medium sized chainsaw and a smaller chainsaw.
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Thanks so much. Be well.
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Interesting. I was not familiar with the two Japanese tools at least not by their Japanese names. Fun how when you work and use tools often, quality tools become a bit of an obsession. So many of my tools are ones I bought for a specific job and just got the cheapest one from the Home Depot. I always regret those purchases.
I ttotally agree, and the more I use tools, the more value I ascribe to them... Cheapo tools are OK for some things, but when it comes to daily use I won't stand for it. Another Japanese tool that changed the way I cut was the ryobi or pull saw. So buttery sharp, it really uped my game when I was notching bird's mouths.
STOPThe Hori hori is pretty much the only hand tool I use (other than pruners/shears). Best investment a person can make (and they aren't expensive). Just love the Hori hori! I'm going to look into the Japanese rice knife, I think we would get a lot of use out if it! I really appreciate all the details you provided on it. :)
RIght on! I've been guarding a new shiny one and haven't put it to soil yet because I love the thing so much. I suppose it's time to break the ice on the new one soon. The hori hori is a real game changer. Just the other day I cleanly separated baby leeks from mommy with no problem at all right before diggin almost a foot deep to plant a tomato. I love the versatility.
I'm excited to see the good use you put the rice knife to. Happy to share our experience and glad it's of use to you.
Very versatile, I agree It's stayed nice and sharp even though I've used it for plenty of tasks that It was not intended for. Its pretty much indispensable in my mind. Have you tried sharpening it at all? I've been wondering about using one of those sharpening files on the serrated blades when it finally gets dull. Just haven't really looked into the feasibility of it yet.
I lost my first one a few years ago and after many weeks of failed searching I replaced it. Two years of snow, rain and whatever else and we found the knife out in the field. Looks brand new! It's nice having a spare and I painted the handles red so hopefully I don't misplace them so easily in future.
So much good information @mountainjewel. Tools are important not only for the homesteader, but even for the backyard gardener like me. Thanks.
I have a big garden hoe kinda like the grub hoe. I use it constantly. Never heard that name before... I gotta start calling it that! I can see it... it's like a big grub worm tearing through the soil... Also I noticed these tools are seem pretty popular in Central America where they are farming on the sides of mountains. It's pretty amazing how much excavating you can really do with one. Mine is heavy and the weight is a nice advantage for digging out stumps and stuff like that. Love this post!! I gotta do one of these later...
This post has won a 1 SBD Prize in the @offgrid-online Your Favorite Tool Contest. Thank you for sharing your favorite tools and how they make tasks easier - Looks like this post already received some well deserved attention - very nice :)