Fiskars Weed Pullers - weapons of weed destruction

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

It doesn't take long for weeds to take over a garden and removing them can be an arduous task. Until of course you are fully prepared to wage war on weeds with the Fiskars Weed Puller. It's a smart solution because it removes weeds with a quick pull and release action without the use of harmful pesticides. The tool works with four deep-reaching stainless steel claws, which grab the tap root efficiently.

Once the weed has been pulled, a quick fire ejection releases it straight into a waiting wheelbarrow or trug and off the lawn or bed you are working in. Designed to make removing weeds effortless, this eco-friendly weeding system allows the gardener to work without bending down, prevent muscle strain and backache.

As James Wong says, the steel claws of Fiskars weed puller reach down deep so you don't have to.

Tips & Tricks from James Wong

"A close relative of trendy radicchio, dandelion leaves are a spring time delicacy across the Mediterranean, from France to Italy. Containing 7x the antioxidants of lettuce, this gourmet green is so easy to grow it literally plants itself. A free farmers market on your doorstep? Boom!"

Product details

• Deep reaching stainless steel claw grab roots in multiple direction

• No digging or bending required

• FibreComp™ shaft for lightness, strength and durability

• Softgrip™ comfortable handle which enhances its ergonomic design

• Length 988mm. Weight 917g

• Length of blade: 90cm

• Available as a telescopic model with a large D-shaped handle. Length 1000mm extending to 1200mm. Weight 1700g

• James Wong fronts the Fiskars garden hand tools campaign to revolutionize gardening and inspire a new generation to get outdoors.

Fiskars garden tools are available nationwide in DIY stores, hardware stores, garden centres and online.

James Wong and Fiskars

In his new role as brand ambassador for Fiskars, horticultural celebrity and ethnobotanist James Wong injects the va va voom into gardening. With tools designed to minimise effort and James set to maximise enjoyment, it's a union that will invigorate today's gardeners and inspire tomorrow's.

Reinventing Gardening

Fiskars tools are examples of the company's aspiration to reinvent the gardening experience through the use of advanced engineering and materials. We believe that all things, even the simplest, can be made better and smarter so that work in the garden becomes easier, lighter, more efficient and simply more pleasurable - which is ultimately what gardening should be all about.

Edible weeds

Dandelion are not the only edible weeds in your garden, however. There is also Chickweed, Fat Hen, aka Lambs Quarter or Goosefoot, and quite a fair number of others. So, therefore, don't necessarily weed them but eat them; at least those that are edible, and as James Wong mentioned as regards to the nutrient content of Dandelion in comparison to lettuce many other weeds too have great nutrient values. Therefore, before you weed the weeds check which ones may be edible and use them rather than waste them.

© 2015

Weeding can be very therapeutic

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Weeding can be a very therapeutic way to spend an hour or so, but to appreciate how good it can be you need to motivate yourself to start.

For a lot of people coming in from work and sitting in front of the TV is a great way to clear your mind, but rather than sit down and do nothing get up and get out weeding your plot. It is not stressful. In fact it relaxes you better than the TV, and you have a sense of achievement when you have finished. And the next day when traveling to work you can look back on what you did and be much happier and you can exude a level of smugness that will have people wondering what medication you are on.

To me weeding is such an exercise in mind clearing and relaxation but it is also that time when the ideas come in, often, for new articles and essays. Another reason why I like it, in the same way as path edging.

Many in professional gardening and grounds-maintenance give me a strange look when I say that I enjoy weeding the beds and edging the paths. They would rather not do it and that is the difference between someone who does it for the money alone and someone who cares about the job.

Aside from destressing weeding and edging gives a great sense of achievement for it gives instant results and you can look back at the work at the end of the day and be pleased with yourself. How many people have such a satisfaction in their jobs working in an office. The only other person that does is the craftsman or -woman who works with his or her hands and holds a finished object in those after a day's work.

This is also why, outside of work, I garden and like to make things with my hands. Relaxation and instant gratification, as far as weeding the garden beds and the finished objects made are concerned. What can be better?

Gardening is therapeutic anyway but makes it even better.

© 2013

Weeding tools

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

What do monks and gardeners have in common? They spend much of their time on their knees.

Where monks spend this time in prayer gardeners spend this time battling weeds and often the only way to do that is, simply, by doing it by hand and kneeling is part of this exercise.

While some weeds are beneficial and many even are edible others are a nuisance and thus must be removed if our plants, especially our vegetables, are to thrive and, as said, often the only way to do that is removing those plants in the wrong place, aka weeds, by hand.

The fingers may be able to do some of the work there are definitely times, and I know that for certain, when weeding tools are called for. Many gardeners will use trowels or hand forks to loosen the ground and then pull the weeds by hand and, yes, that does work. Others, on the other hand, and pardon the pun, swear by the use of a weeding claw, much like the old-time cultivators.

To a degree, as with many gardening tools, it is a case of horses for courses but, as far as I am concerned, the best tool for hand weeding plant beds of any kind is a wire weeder, sold under the name of Wonder Weeder, but which can be made by easy DIY, or substituted with a hoof pick.

I have made my own wire weeders and do, more often than not though, use an old hoof pick for this purpose.

The advantage of a wire weeder or hoof pick to loosen the soil and pick out weeds is that you do not have to lay the tool aside when picking the weeds up with the hand and disposing off them into a trug, for instance. The tool just rests inside the palm of the hand while picking and then is ready for use again straight away. Saves time.

There are, no doubt, times when you have to remove a larger weed, or one with a deep root that has become rather established and other tools are required, whether this the hand fork, trowel, or a weed removal tool such as Grampa's Weeder or the Fiskars Weed Puller W52 or W82.

In general, however, a wire weeder is all you need, with the other tools as a back up

© 2013

Homemade Wire Weeder

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Recently I have seen this little tool in constant use by a gardener and was wondering how easy it would be to actually make one of those myself.

The answer is: “Extremely easy and it takes but a few minutes”.

All you need is some strong wire – I used a piece of wire from a wire coat hangers as they are being used by dry cleaners – and a wire cutter and a pair of pliers.

The original wire for this would be the Imperial or British Standard No.8 wire which, in today's “money”, equals a 4.0mm gauge wire. The latter, which is a fencing wire, is probably stronger and better than a wire coat hanger but in the latter case you do some useful recycling.

You will need:

• a length of strong wire (recycle some wire coat hanger)
• a pair of combination pliers
• a pair of wire cutters (though often there is a wire cutting notch in the combination pliers thus the need for additional wire cutters may not exist)
• and
• about five minutes of time (give or take a few)

That's it and, made with a little care, this will be the most useful tool in your gardening armory that you will ever own.

© 2012

Weeding and watering are starting to get a bit boring after a while

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Weeding and watering are starting to get a bit boring now, in the South-East of England at the end of May 2011, seeing that we have been at it ever since March of this year.

But we also know that we have to keep it up, especially the watering, or we'll have no vegetables later but it can really start to get you down after a while.

Weeding too, obviously, is a necessary task so that the weed do not compete for the veg for water and nutrients, but it is less of importance than is watering in this time of drought and a drought it, officially, is by now.

Mind you, on the morning of Sunday, May 22, we woke to some dampness on the ground and even a little standing water here and there on the hard surfaces but it is nothing in way of what really is needed.

The trouble is that tap water, while fine for us for drinking, somehow only just about keeps the plants alive; a discovery that I shared with the readers before. Rain water, on the other hand, especially in the form of rain, immediately makes everything perk up and get going and growing.

Now I have also have to consider planting a couple of tomato plants that I have got – bought (I cheated, as those i tried growing from seed - a new variety – did not do much at all) – into grow bags.

The problem with using grow bags, however, is that they dry out quickly and thus there will be need for even more watering and being in a bag that, to a great degree, remains closed rain does not get to the plants easily either.

However, this year I have a few things here to trial for review. One of them is a set of three GrowPots (from Garden Innovations via Lakeland) and the other being the GrowTube, a watering system for grow bags that employs a 2liter soda bottle, (also from Lakeland).

Tomatoes, like potatoes, like to be fed, and that quite a good deal. You can use Tomarite or Tomato Food from Chempak which was voted Best Buy Tomato Food in May 2010 by the Which? Magazine.

I am also using the Vegetable Fertilizer from Chempak and must say that my potatoes, which are one of the primary recipients of this fertilizer under review, are doing very well with its help.

© 2011

Things to do in the garden as the weather gets warmer

Things to do in the garden now, at the end of February and the beginning of March

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

As the weather starts to get warmer – well a little bit anyway – the list of jobs in the garden starts to grow, and if you don't tackle the jobs when you can bad weather may prevent you from getting them done at all. However, so far every time it try to get into my garden I am looking for a way to do drainage; it is still like a swamp out there.

I have been trying to get the planters prepared for the new season and also start to set out the first potatoes into containers but bad weather has so far prevented me from doing so.

There is so much to do, in my garden and I am sure in yours too, however, with another wet weekend forecast it looks like it there isn't much going to happen there this weekend either.

The apple trees need pruning and so far that has not been possible either simply because of the weather but it must be done soon, before it is too late, and the espalier trees of mine are getting way too high. The branches, however, will, some of them at least, make nice walking sticks, I should think. As said, it has to happen soon and I may have to do it this weekend, regardless of what the weather is going to be like, as long as it is not raining too much. as the buds are swelling up already.

Winter pruning of apple trees

The first months of the year, theoretically, is the time to prune apple trees and the same also applied to pears.

So, when I start pruning the first thing I do is look at the tree and look at the shape and how the branches have grown. Keeping the general shape in mind whilst you are pruning helps you to not make any rash decisions and prune with a heavy hand.

The next thing to do is to remove any dead, diseased or damaged branches and any branches which cross or touch another, as branches that are getting close to each other or are even touching will rub and such rubbing will cause wounds and can allow – in fact, it will allow – pathogens and diseases to enter. And that is something you definitely do not want.

What that is done look to open up the centre of the tree so air can circulate around and reduce the possibility of any disease building in the still air. This, obviously, only applies to free-standing trees; espaliers are different.

Lastly you should be left with last years growth to prune and this should be trimmed to about half the length and to an outside facing bud.

If you follow all those steps you should now have a healthy tree which should produce a good crop of apples.

If you have your trees in an espalier style growing against a wall or fence you don't want it to get too long ion the tooth, so to speak. Thus you may, like what I will have to do, cut off some serious long growth, as I got delayed to do it last year and could not do it because it had gotten too late.

Any dead, decayed and diseased branched that remove from the trees burn and do not chip and use in composting or as mulch as you might transfer disease to other areas. Always consider any and all branches that are dead on a tree as having, probably, dies as a result of disease, to be on the safe side and, as said, burn any such wood.

Other tasks

You can now, as it is getting warmer, start the early potatoes from slips that have eyes on them and you do not, necessarily, have to have seed potatoes. On the contrary; if you have store bought potatoes developing eyes peel the potatoes thickly where the eyes are and those slips will grow into potato plants without any problems.

Other tasks are putting on well rotted manure and other soil improvers, such as compost made with bracken, and a very good one on that level is the “Lakeland Gold” compost. If you use such compost as soil improver, or, obviously, your own, home-grown one, apply about a two to three inch thick layer and fork over the beds and containers to give some goodness back to the soil. Don't use the likes of “Grow More” or such “fertilizers”, as they do nothing for the soil; they are but plant food.

Dandelion has started to grow now as well and you can either go and dig them out or allow them to grow, if not in the wrong place, and harvest the leaves – and other parts of the plant. Dandelion leaves are great in salads and on sandwiches too.

If you want or have to dig them out try to go for green ways of doing it and the investment in a Weed Puller, such as the Fiskars W52 or W82, or the Grandpa's Weeder, will soon pay for itself. Those tools make removal of such weeds extremely simple and easy.

© 2011