My Mom and Grandpa Swear This $28 Tool Makes Weeding 10x Easier

As much as I love city living, there are definitely some drawbacks that come with it. The one that’s been rearing its ugly head lately is the fact that I can’t create a full-fledged garden. My teensy balcony — grateful as I am to have a sliver of outdoor space — just doesn’t allow me to live out my gardening dreams to the fullest. 

I can’t help but be jealous of my mom, who moved into a new house a few years back and did a complete overhaul of the front yard. Her garden is in tip-top shape thanks to the hours she puts into maintaining it every week. She enjoys it, but there are plenty of unglamorous aspects of the process that I’m not at all envious of, like pulling weeds.

When she isn’t using her hori hori garden knife to dig up her garden’s pesky invaders, my mom relies on an underrated tool that makes weeding so much easier: a stirrup hoe. My grandpa recommended it to her as soon as she got to work on redoing her yard, and it’s been a staple in her maintenance kit ever since.

Also known as the action hoe or the hula hoe, this tool is as simple to use as it looks. It consists of a looped, dual-sided steel blade designed to cut through weed roots effortlessly. It sinks into the ground about an inch or two. The loop is 5.8 inches wide and shaped like a trapezoid, so it’s slim enough to avoid your plants.

The 54-inch long handle that the blade is attached to helps with hard-to-reach areas, and it also keeps you from having to crouch on the ground. Once embedded in the ground, all it takes is a slight push-pull movement to dislodge most weeds from the soil, apart from the super large ones. It turns a once-strenuous task into light work.

Like me, my mom didn’t know that this kind of tool existed before my grandpa’s recommendation. Once she knew to keep an eye out for it, she found a stirrup hoe at an estate sale, but she recently upgraded to Husky’s version and has only positive feedback. “It’s great for weeding around and under bushes,” she says. “Its long handle allows me to clean out areas I can’t reach by hand, and the sharp edge removes weeds without dragging small rocks with it.”

“It speeds up the whole process, which I love,” she continues, noting that it works best on most types of soil as long as it’s not super dense or tough. “It’s very satisfying to get so much work done so quickly without having to bend over.” 

If weeds are taking over your garden and you find your back hurting after clearing them all out, the stirrup hoe will be the gift to yourself that keeps on giving. My mom did mention that somewhere down the road, she’ll need to resharpen the blade, but in the grand scheme of things, all of its pros outweigh that one tiny con.

Buy: Husky Wood Handle Action Hoe, $27.98 at The Home Depot (similar alternative at Amazon)