Choosing planting

What is a hand weeder used for?

Versatile tool

Contents

Modified the 21 September 2025 by Olivier 2 min. Difficulty: Beginner

Exclusive to Spear & Jackson, short- or long-hand weeders are used for maintaining flower beds and bushes, vegetable gardens, planters and even for maintaining paths and patios. This garden tool, particularly versatile, allows working the surface layer of soil. It thus combines functions of a rake, a hand hoe, a hoe, a garden cultivator and a weeder. The ace-of-spades-shaped blade is equipped with three sharpened edges. With a weeder, you can thus create furrows, cultivate the soil, hoe, rake, remove moss, weed…

Difficulty

What is a desherbinet?

The desherbinet is an astonishingly versatile garden tool. Born from the expertise of Spear & Jackson, a manufacturer renowned for the quality of their equipment, this oddly-named implement will quickly become indispensable in every gardener’s shed.

A desherbinet comes either with a long wooden handle for working standing up, or with a short wooden handle for working crouched or in window boxes and vegetable planters : Long-handled Desherbinet Spear & Jackson and Mini Desherbinet Spear & Jackson.

Its distinctive feature is the particular shape of its head in durable steel: a spade-ace blade bent in the middle, fitted with three sharpened edges. Very light and easy to handle, the desherbinet combines several functions. It is at once: a grub hoe, a hand hoe, a large claw, a scraper, a weeder and even a rake.

Spear & Jackson desherbinet short and long handles

How and where to use a hand weeder?

In flower beds and bush beds: weeding hoes (long- or short-handled) are very useful for working between plants. These tools can thus weed effectively and scratch and loosen the surface layer of soil for better aeration and improved water penetration;
In vegetable plot: the long-handled weeding hoe enables making furrows for sowing, weeding effectively between the ranks and breaking the surface crust. This tool is also used to rake and level the soil before sowing;
In small vegetable beds and window boxes: in this case, the mini weeding hoe is ideal for scraping the substrate, making furrows and levelling the soil;
Elsewhere in garden: the mini weeding hoe (or the large one if you prefer to work standing up) allows weeding and moss removal from joints between paving slabs or stones, in paths or on the terrace. It is also effective for working in corners.

Using a weeding hoe is fairly intuitive. Use in turn the blade tip to draw furrows, weed or scratch the soil, while the reverse edge, equally sharp, can break large clods of soil, scrape soil and slabs or level like a rake.