Rhonda Nowak

Late fall gardening tasks Look around your garden for winter weeds popping up and remove them while their root systems are still immature. Then take some time to clean and sharpen your garden tools. Remove rust with steel wool pads and remove sap with cotton balls saturated with rubbing alcohol, which also sterilizes the tools. Sharpen tool blades with a file, making sure to file only the cutting edges and moving the file in short strokes away from you. Apply mineral oil to the blades and linseed oil to wooden handles. Store in a dry location; some gardeners like to store their tools, blade-end down, in a bucket filled with coarse sand and mineral oil.

“[A] garden like mine, more primitive than other gardens, with plants far simpler and more ancient than cultured plants, demands old-fashioned tools and primeval names and simple craft.”

— Meir Shalev, “My Wild Garden: Notes from a Writer’s Eden,” 2020

In a chapter titled “Work Tools,” author Meir Shalev gives praise to several implements he uses to tend his wildflower garden in Israel. He mentions a nafa, a sieve with fine holes that he uses to sift poppy (Papaver) seeds and the larger-holed kevara, which he uses for sifting corncockle (Agrostemma) seeds. He also fashioned a digging implement after the ancient stonecutting tool called a balamina that he claims can deepen and widen a planting hole more efficiently than a shovel or pickax.

As for the wheelbarrow, invented in 231 A.D. in China, Shalev says, “Every time I use my wheelbarrow, I wonder how I ever lived without it and am impressed by the ingenuity concealed within its incredibly simple structure.”

In fact, the design of modern wheelbarrows is remarkably similar to the first wooden pushcarts that were used to transport food and supplies into battlefields during the Shu Han dynasty and to transport injured and dead soldiers out of the battlefields.

Another, less ancient, tool for gardening Shalev mentions is the Swiss Army knife, which he prefers over the Leatherman “because it has a corkscrew – that is to say, its inventor recognized that man was born not only to toil.” (I learned Swiss Army knives were originally produced in Germany in 1891, and it was only the knives made for officers that included a corkscrew; knives for non-commissioned soldiers had a can opener, instead.)

As noted, a Swiss Army knife has many practical uses, but one tool Shalev frequently uses with a specific gardening purpose is a drip irrigation hole puncher. Rather than pierce holes into the irrigation lines with this tool, however, Shalev uses it to insert plugs into the holes made by woodpeckers that, according to him, mistake the sound of water rushing through the driplines as “the very sound made by a worm in a tree.”

I wonder what excuse the turkeys that forage through my front yard would make if they were inclined to offer one.

At any rate, I think Shalev’s high regard for the dripline puncher tool could stem from the fact that an Israeli father and son, Simcha and Yeshayahu Blass, developed the first modern drip irrigation system in 1959. No doubt the puncher tool was invented shortly thereafter.

I, too, am fond of my garden tools.

The implements I use most frequently include my hand pruners (anvil cutters for pruning thicker dead branches and bypass cutters for more delicate plant stems) and my planting trowel (I prefer a pointed blade tip for easier digging). In addition to these old standbys, I carry around my smartphone to take pictures and a magnifying glass to examine plants for insects and diseases.

I recently purchased a tool called Grampa’s Weeder to help me clear an area overrun with an invasive perennial called false dandelion (Hypochoeris radicata). The tool has a long handle to prevent gardeners from having to bend or kneel and a simple fork and lever system that grasps weeds and lifts them out of the ground without the gardener having to pull them.

When I researched Grampa’s Weeder, I learned it was developed in 1913 in the Pacific Northwest. I appreciate its simple design with few breakable parts, that it’s made of sturdy bamboo and heavy-duty steel (no plastic), and that it weighs only three pounds so it’s easy to carry around. In addition to false (and true) dandelions, the tool is touted to effectively remove crabgrass and other weeds with fibrous roots and taproots.

The tool has received overwhelmingly positive reviews on the Grampa’s Weeder website. One happy customer named Janice recently posted these glowing remarks: “I have never been into gardening until I met my Grampa’s Weeder…It’s true gratification when I see the entire root coming out. It really makes me wake up each morning wanting to tackle my yard.”

When I read this, I thought, “Wow, I want some of Janice’s enthusiasm for weeding! I want a Grampa’s Weeder, too!”

Having obtained proud ownership of said tool, I leaped out of bed this morning with a burning desire to tackle the weeds in my yard (just kidding). Seriously, though, I found Grampa’s Weeder as successful at removing false dandelion and common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) as Janice said it would be. I was indeed gratified to see those elusive taproots come up with little effort.

The trick with this tool is to center the fork so it clasps around the weed’s central stalk before pressing the lever firmly to the ground and leaning the handle towards the lever. It doesn’t work as well on weeds with stolons or rhizomes, such as creeping grasses.

Now, I won’t go so far as to say that I’m eagerly anticipating my next session with Grampa’s Weeder, but I will say I’ve never felt better prepared to battle it out with the weeds in my garden. I wonder if — 2,000 years from now — Grampa’s Weeder will rival the wheelbarrow as the gardener’s best friend.

Look around your garden for winter weeds popping up and remove them while their root systems are still immature. Then take some time to clean and sharpen your garden tools. Remove rust with steel wool pads and remove sap with cotton balls saturated with rubbing alcohol, which also sterilizes the tools. Sharpen tool blades with a file, making sure to file only the cutting edges and moving the file in short strokes away from you. Apply mineral oil to the blades and linseed oil to wooden handles. Store in a dry location; some gardeners like to store their tools, blade-end down, in a bucket filled with coarse sand and mineral oil.