Hoe! Hoe! Hoe!  Happy dog-days of summer in Southern Missouri and Illinois!  It’s hot with 95% humidity and the weeds are thriving. It’s time to celebrate gardening and hoe, hoe, hoeing. If you read my previous blog or one of the great gardening books available at Buchheit; they suggest that mulching would prevent the need for so much hoeing.  While that’s true, you will discover working the dirt to prevent soil impaction is still a necessity.

Note how hard-packed this section of the soil is close to these plants’. This happens if we have a torrential rain that pounds the dirt or if the soil gets baked by intense heat.  The best way to get oxygen back to the plant’s roots is with a good turning over with a sharp hoe.

Hoeing is, like so many other homesteading skill-sets, an art form.  If you watch an experienced gardener hoe their garden, you may be struck at how effortlessly they work.  There are no wasted movements and it takes a veteran half the time it will take the rest of us.  The right tool is the key.  Buchheit carries an extensive line of garden tools including hoes.  I have fallen in love with a pointed prong hoe that is very light weight and allows me to hoe both shallow depths and do deep down digging.  As I age, I prefer a lighter weight hoe but for larger projects, I favor a wide concrete mixing hoe with holes in the blade that is heavy enough to make major headway, across a plot of ground.  Jim always keeps our tools sharp which helps with effective garden cultivation.  I have been working in wet dirt so this hoe is dirty now but will be cleaned and oiled before day’s end.

To reduce the amount of hoeing needed, I am still adding mulch as I clean out the chicken coop.  I had several bales of wheat straw in the coop that I used as “step-stools” for my younger guests so that they could gather egg from the tall nesting boxes.  Both bales burst.  Since nothing goes to waste on a homestead, I kept them in the coop to absorb some chicken fecal material as the straw broke down.  It made a great addition to the garden as mulch since the ratio of chicken manure to straw will not burn the plants.

The white row cover is in place for the upcoming 100+ days when I will drape most of the garden in “man-made” shade. Hoeing and mulch are a great combination for continued garden success. I hope you check out the gardening tools available at Buchheit soon.  Jim and I are off to our local store today to pick up some of the sale items.  I need more lids for my canning!  Be blessed!  Anne May