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New Weeding Tool
Clarky4
Posts: 1
I am a Loughborough University final year student studying Product Design Engineering. I am designing a new tool to make weeding an easier task. I would really appreciate any answers to the following questions, no answer is too insignificant.
1. The most tedious/difficult part about weeding?
2. What would you like a weeding tool to do ideally ? - i.e get the roots out, loosen soil, not have to bend over etc.
3. Problems with current weeding tools?
4. Any ideas for a new weeding tool?
Thanks you!
0
Posts
I would like a very narrow Dutch Hoe.
1. Constant repetition, like dusting. Getting bindweed out from plants I wish to keep.
2. Depends on the weed - annuals are easy to hoe but others like nettles have long, running roots close to the surface and thistles, docks and dandelions have deep tap roots which need to e completely removed or they come back as root cuttings.
3. Normal hoes are fine for small annual weeds but big weeds need something to hoik them out without disrupting treasures.
4. See 3.
Wouldnt it be great if you could programme your weeding tool so that it beeped when it was a plant you wanted to keep. I might even be able to let hubby loose in the garden if I had one of those.
For me bending is the worst part of weeding, also the difficulty of getting down to the roots.
Currently I use a mixture of a hoe and the newish fisker weeder.
1. Constantly bending down to pick up weed.
2. Different weeds need different tools - i.e. deep roots or surface weeds.
3. Dutch hoe too wide.
4. A very narrow dutch hoe or other very narrow hoe. (this would be the only tool I am really in need of).
2. Roots out
3. Too bulky for awkward places.
4. Curved to get around other plants, strong enough to get a tough weed, delicate enough to get a weed near another plant without disturbing it. Lightweight.
1. Seeing the little beggars re grow so quickly and getting the complete root out
2. Get all the root out with ease: most I find just snap some root off.
3. Root snapping!
4. A magic one that did it for me! And also told me that me bum never looks big in anything I wear
I find that a small hand fork, a small onion hoe and my fingers are the best weeding tools I've ever used.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The best weeding tools I have are my fingers - for small 'weeds', with a little help from a trowel or daisy grubber when needed, or a hoe for bigger area, though it's the little weeds between other plants that are the hard ones. However, fingers are subject to getting pricked and nettled, and putting on a glove makes the fingers more clumsy and less good at dealing with the really small stuff. So, what I need is a glove that is very thin and flexible but also very tough indeed and doesn't let nettle stings through, and that easily sheds mud etc.
This probably isn't what you think of as a 'tool'...