| about OUR TOOLS |
| Hoe |
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| We bought a garden hoe for about $10. It was too wide (too much soil disturbance) and weak (because we use it in rock), so I narrowed it (to 90mm wide) with a grinder (cutting wheel) and welded a brace on it. I also carry around a file in my pocket to keep it sharp (but keep the corners rounded). Being sharp cuts the plant more easily and so reduced soil disturbance. The rounded corners stops the hoe digging in so much, if it's on a slight angle, and again reduces soil disturbance. |
| Trailer |
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| Vehicle |
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| We needed to be able to take the spray tank into the reserve (off the tracks). Even with the 100m hose, we couldn't get to all our weed sites. So we invested $800 in this old Subaru 4wd. It came with a 2" lift kit, which helps get over low bushes without damaging them, and near new mud tires to stop us getting bogged. Tightest turning circle of any 4wd out there, perfect for steering around trees & bushes to get to the weeds. NB: 4wd mode will rip up the ground around corners. We only use 2wd mode, and haven't required the 4wd mode to get out of trouble ..... yet |
| Weed Sprayer: 100m hose |
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| An incredible gift from our friends; 100l spray tank. I replaced the 30m heavy garden hose with a 6mm light weight 100m hose & reel for $250. Maries goes through about 50l herbicide a day, leaves the car overnight, walking back to the camp site, then finishes off the next day and drives back to get a refill for the following week |
| Weed Sprayer: 20m hose |
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With Marie off doing larger areas of wild sage in Ruby, I converted my old wheelbarrow into a spray unit to cover the remaining onion weed.
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| Weed Sprayer: Hand Weeding |
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| This is what we now use to kill our onion weed now. A $2 1/2 litre spray bottle of pure herbicide (with die), a snap knife and an old feed bag to collect any seed pods. Cut off the onion weed at ground level and spray a tiny squirt onto the cut. It works perfectly. From 3 months to do our large 3 acre patch 4 years ago, we did the whole area in 3 hours. The reason being, they are so small now it's really easy to cut them with the knife. In the past they'd take a lot of work to cut. The shovels haven't been used for a couple of years now. |
| Weeding Shovels |
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| These started out as $10 shovels that I modified to suite spot weeding with minimal soil disturbance. I made 2 types: One was just cut to a narrow, flat end. While useful, it's not strong enough and the narrow end kept breaking off (hence I welded a backing plate on). But we find it very useful for light soils (ie sandy), small weeds or rocky ground where we just cut the weed off rather than dig it out. With the 2nd type, I cut the end off the shovel and welded a piece of thin angle iron to the back. Mine's longer than Marie's for the bigger jobs, so has extra support. (Primarily I used it to go deeper for Mignonette, but we don't have this at Ellura). Marie also finds the shorter one easier to use. The angle iron is probably a bit too light, and can bend if not used with care. But this makes it much lighter for carrying, and is much easier to push into hard ground. Notice Marie's is more tapered; making it easier to push in but more fragile. | |||||||||
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| Copyright © 1996-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. |