A Farm Toolbox: Mattocks

This addition to the toolbox includes a “threefer”, a garden mattock, a weeding mattock and a pick mattock. These tools are pulled out of the toolbox when you are serious about the job at hand. Dirt will fly, pigweed will die and clay and chirt will disappear. Just make sure to mind the eyes when swinging the pick mattock.

Our three mattocks posing on the carry-all.

Our three mattocks posing on the carry-all.

 

Pick Mattock: this mattock has an adze on one end and a pick on the other. The mattock sits on a squat three foot handle. We use this to help start or finish digging out large holes. It is also used to excavate trenches. Stand in a wide stance over the hole, raise the mattock to a 45 degree angle and bring it down with force. Good things will happen.

Weeding Mattock: this mattock has a four-inch adze on one end and a two-inch adze on the other. It is attached to a long slender handle. This mattock is perfect for weeding in an established garden, an elegant tool that allows one to reach in among plants with ease. And with that long handle and light business end, I find that it makes light work in the garden of grubbing out intruders.

Garden Mattock: An adze on one end and a cultivator on the other, mounted on a short 12 inch handle this is a one-handed tool. This is my favorite tool to use when doing a quick weeding of the herb garden. Or, one Cindy grabs to clean a flower garden. It has a real heft that allows the adze end to grub out serious taproots. And the cultivating end has tines that are strong enough to work in the toughest soils. A sweet tool made sweeter by the purchase cost of a couple of dollars on a clearance table.

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Homestead Tip: a cider mill shreds cabbage. I took fifty pounds of freshly harvested cabbage, cut into quarters and ran it through our cider mill. It took about fifteen minutes. I then salted it and pressed it into the crock. It has been quietly fermenting away in the corner of the library. Pretty nifty!