Tools Used for Pulling Weeds

The best time to pull weeds is before their roots are large enough to endanger your vegetables and flowers when you extract them, but even then, weed control is hard on the fingers -- not to mention the back -- unless you have the right tools. Weed-pulling tools are seldom complicated, but they must be sharp, and whether you're using one to pull individual weeds or to clear a large swath of ground, it doesn't hurt to have a long handle.

The main purpose of a hoe is to turn soil to aerate it and spread nutrients, but it's also useful for removing shallow-root annual weeds. For this purpose, you can find a number of variations of the classic chopping hoe.

This digging tool consists of a triangular blade offset from the handle. You use it by dragging it through the soil just under the surface.

Like a Dutch hoe, you use a collinear hoe, which has a long, narrow blade attached to a long handle, to cut weeds just below the surface. The tool is designed to drag along the ground beside you as you walk.

The hula hoe, which is also known as a stirrup hoe, gets its name from the fact that its blade is loosely connected to the handle and does a hula-style wiggle when you drag it just under the ground surface. The wiggle helps keep the blade aligned with the direction you're pulling.

Replace the plowing tool on a wheel cultivator with a stirrup blade and you've got a wheel hoe, with which you can quickly skim a large area and remove shallow weeds.

A knife with a sharp point quickly penetrates the ground and, if it's sharp, makes short work of weeds. Sickles work in a similar way -- the difference between these tools is that sickles typically cut on the pull stroke.

This tool, which many people use to pull dandelions, can have a short or long handle, has a thin, double-pointed blade. Some know it as the quintessential long-handled weed puller. You use it by thrusting it into the ground and cutting weeds -- and asparagus stalks -- at a point just below the surface. This is a surgical tool best for handling individual weeds.

This multi-purpose Japanese knife has a double-sided blade; one side is smooth and sharp and the other is serrated for cutting through tough roots. The blade comes to a sharp point that allows you to dig it deep into the soil to get long tap-roots. Its modern cousin, the Zenbori knife, has a PVC handle.

Also originating in Asia, the Korean hand plow, also known as an EZ Digger or Ho-Mi, is a sicklelike cutting and digging tool with a curved triangular shape that looks almost leaflike. Like the hori hori, it is useful for planting as well as weeding, but its sharp edges make it especially suited for severing roots and lifting weeds out of the ground.

This sicklelike weed extractor has a head that resembles that of a cobra poised to strike. It's the crowbar of hand weeders -- the sharp steel head digs deep into the soil, and a prying motion extracts deep, well-established roots that other weeders can't reach.

The weeding sickle has the same shape as the conventional one used for harvesting, but it's a small tool suitable for digging and extracting individual weeds. It has saw teeth that can catch onto a weed's roots, allowing you to pull them out or cut through the roots several inches below ground level.

The main tool found in every gardening shed is also a useful tool for pulling weeds. Make sure you have a high-quality one with a tempered steel blade -- budget products tend to bend out of shape under stress.