What is a hoe used for?

What is a hoe?

A hoe is a gardening and agricultural tool with a handle, usually made of wood, to which a (blade) made of forged steel is attached perpendicularly to the handle.

The hoe can be fitted with a flat or hooked blade: Traditional hoe with a flat blade & Hoe with a dentate blade. The handle and blade can come in various sizes (as is the case, for example, in Africa) depending on the use: digging, weeding, soil work, planting… Most often, only hoes with an ash wood handle measuring about 1.10-1.20 m are found. The ideal handle height should be between the ground and the bent elbow when standing. If the handle is not of this size, the user risks unnecessary fatigue or back injury.

Hoe blades can be heavy, light, wide, or narrow… A wide and heavy hoe blade (about 20 cm) will work the soil more effectively than a narrow and light one (like the Duopro hoe with a 12 cm wide blade), but the gardener will tire more quickly. It’s up to you to decide… Additionally, narrow blades can get into tight spaces while wider ones are used for heavier work.

For your information: a “market gardener’s hoe” refers to a type of wheel cultivator used in market gardening. This tool features a wheel at the front, a blade just behind, and two long handles for pushing. The term “Dutch hoe” is also used for manual tools with a blade curved towards the front: this tool is only suitable for hoeing and weeding.

Did you know? The hoe is a very ancient agricultural tool. It has been used for cultivation since the Neolithic and is found in all parts of the world. The tool itself has changed very little in terms of its shape and use, although it has appeared in gardens since the 19th century, moving from being primarily agricultural. Only the materials and manufacturing have improved.

Moreover, this tool has, even in France, countless names derived from regional dialects: hoyau, bêchoir, féchou, écobue, bêchard, bessoche, déchaussoir, sarcle or essade (and many more…) for flat-bladed hoes and bigot or mègle for hooked (dentate) hoes.

What is a hoe used for?

Depending on the shape and size of the blade and even the length of the handle, a hoe can be used for a multitude of different tasks in the garden. This is particularly true in Africa, South America, or Southeast Asia, where most agricultural hand tools are essentially just hoes of various shapes and appearances. Unfortunately, in our region, this type of tool is not offered in such diversity. Therefore, we will focus only on a conventional hoe: a full-blade head of about 20 cm wide mounted on a wooden ash handle of approximately 1.20 m. Here’s what the hoe is used for in our gardens:

• Working the soil to loosen and aerate it;
• Digging furrows, trenches, and planting holes, the start of a pond;
• Weeding and hoeing adventive plants;
• Hilling certain plants and vegetables;
• Cutting through large roots and even clearing by cutting young shoots of bushes or perennials.

The hoe, like the pickaxe, is capable of working where other tools would barely scratch the surface of the soil. This is mainly due to its weight and the way it is used.

How to use a hoe?

To put it simply, the use of a hoe lies between a pickaxe and a hand cultivator.

• Grip the handle with both hands
• Lift the tool: above your head for very light hoes or just to hip height for others, especially for relatively light work.
• Then bring it down more or less forcefully onto the ground: watch your back!!
• Once on the ground, you can tap the soil with the blade in small bursts just to loosen it, or more forcefully to dig a hole or a trench.