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Spear & Jackson Select Stainless Steel Dutch Hoe
by ladybracknell
As any gardener will tell you, a Dutch hoe is a very useful weapon in the gardener's arsenal especially for getting at those nasty little weeds which always seem to flourish more than the plants, or at least they do in my garden.
After many years of faithful service and equally long damp winters spent in the garden shed, my ... trusty Dutch hoe literally fell apart this Spring. It had belonged to my Dad, and possibly his dad before him, who gave it to me when I first moved into a house with a garden, so it was with a heavy heart that I consigned it to the dump but the wooden handle had simply crumbled away and the metal head was extremely rusty and no longer up to the task of dealing with the rampant weed growth in my rather neglected garden.
I looked around for a replacement and plumped for the Spear & Jackson hoe retailing at Argos for £7.49. Spear & Jackson are a well-known and well-respected manufacturer of garden tools, first founded in Sheffield at the end of the eighteenth century, so I assumed they'd learned a thing or two about making steel tools in the last two hundred and fifty years.
Appearance:
This particular hoe is entirely made from metal and I reasoned that an all-metal hoe would fare better in the damp British winters to come than my previous wooden handled one.
The stainless steel head has a very highly polished blade which Spear & Jackson claims ensures minimal soil adhesion. The shaft is made from aluminium so is very lightweight and, certainly from a female perspective, it's an easy tool to maniupulate especially when hoeing weeds at the back of the border. The hoe has a soft grip which extends quite a long way down the shaft. This grip feels like rubber but I suspect it may actually be made of plastic. Whatever it's composition, however, it is comfortable to hold and is non-slip.
Usability:
As I've already said, this tool is very lightweight so easy to manipulate. I often found with my old hoe that reaching to the back of the border without treading on the garden was quite difficult and put considerable strain on the muscles in my upper arms. I don't have that problem with this hoe though which also has a longer shaft than my previous one.
The blade is sharp, as well as shiny, and cuts easily through the shallow roots of annual weeds as well as loosening the roots of the more persistent perennial weeds such as couch grass and dandelions, making them easier to finish uprooting by hand.
The claim made by Spear & Jackson about soil adhesion so far also seems to hold water. Because of the highly polished blade the soil does indeed seem to stay on the ground rather than stick onto the surface of the hoe although because it's a fairly new garden tool, I am still looking after it and cleaning it after each use. I imagine if the cutting blade is allowed to become dull then more soil would adhere to the surface of the blade.
In summary:
I have no hesitation in recommending this hoe. It is cheap to buy, easy to use, well made and built to last. I anticipate I shall be using this for many gardening years to come.
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Wilkinson Sword Stainless Steel Swoe
by rxpell
When an old rusty wooden-shafted hoe we had finally gave up the ghost it was time for something new ... on a trip to the garden centre this one caught my eye. In fact I ended up buying both this "Swoe" and a matching "Draw Hoe". The swoe has been used a lot, the draw hoe has hardly been out of the shed. Even before ... you get to the blade, the thing that strikes me about this is its looks ... the design is sleek and stunning with shiny metal and black (the one we have also has an orange tip not shown in the picture here) making it looks very futuristic and more than a humble garden tool. This a garden tool, however, and it is function not form we are after, so enough looking, what's it like to use ? The shaft is long and the overall weight light so its easy to use and easy to reach between plants and get into the back of beds. At the business end is the "swoe" blade which I like and find good for precision hoeing ... I've been using it diligently on my garlic and onion beds and a few minutes work every couple of days is keeping them weed free. Also used it on the potatoes but for these, I think, an old-style Dutch hoe is probably better, but I got this for the detailed stuff.
Only slight negative is it was more expensive than other types on offer, but I fell for the looks but wasn't dissapointed.
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