Mule Team as garden knife (Hori Hori)

[michael_aos]

We have a problem with "goat head" weeds growing in very hard, sandy / rocky soil.

I've tried things like dandelion diggers / hand weeders and cheap Hori Hori style garden knives. They work, but dull very quickly and require a lot of effort to sever the tap root.

Would something with the blade-profile of a Mule Team in an appropriate steel make sense for this task?

Or is it just totally the wrong tool for the job and a stupid idea?

[sal]

Hi Michael,

Welcome to our forum.

sal

[N. Brian Huegel]

30% Vinegar, not the kind sold in your grocery store canning/pickling. Kills just about all weeds, is safe and biodegradable. You might want to add a couple tablespoons of liquid dishwashing soap per gallon of vinegar as a wetting agent, but I haven't needed to as straight vinegar worked great!

nb

[bleasure]

If you do use it this way, I'd be very eager to know about your experiences. I have a ZMax, T15, and Magnacut mule. So far only the Magnacut has been used appropriately, and is the only one I'd consider for this kind of work. I've been 'meaning' to handle the others for years now but haven't had the right setup or materials.

The blades aren't very long, so I expect that's a limitation for this job, but they are reasonably stout. The flat grind means by the edge the material is thin, so any torquing - as in getting into the dirt and sawing/moving - means you'd want a very tough steel. I believe AEB-L blades are still available, and those seem like a decent bet for testing. Not difficult to sharpen up after invevitable blade damage going into the dirt, and pretty tough - hopefully enough so to avoid chipping.

Best of luck if you do try, and please share your results if so

[JRinFL]

30% Vinegar, not the kind sold in your grocery store canning/pickling. Kills just about all weeds, is safe and biodegradable. You might want to add a couple tablespoons of liquid dishwashing soap per gallon of vinegar as a wetting agent, but I haven't needed to as straight vinegar worked great!

nb

This works well. It worked best for me when I added a little table salt to the mix. Be warned, your yard will smell like a salad and it can be too much on hot days. If you use too much you can change the PH of your soil, so like with everything, moderation is key.

[tcarltonw]

We have a problem with "goat head" weeds growing in very hard, sandy / rocky soil.

I've tried things like dandelion diggers / hand weeders and cheap Hori Hori style garden knives. They work, but dull very quickly and require a lot of effort to sever the tap root.

Would something with the blade-profile of a Mule Team in an appropriate steel make sense for this task?

Or is it just totally the wrong tool for the job and a stupid idea?

As a career Landscaper it sounds like a pick axe is the tool for you. Grub it out, take a rake(just makes things quicker) and sift out your weeds and replace good soil in place.

[michael_aos]

The way these things grow, I think something like a "harvesting" knife is about right.

You basically just ball the plant up in one hand, and then slice it off level or slightly below the surface and it comes out as one big bunch. A single plant can fill up a 5-gallon bucket.

You generally want to disturb the soil (and the plant) as little as possible to avoid creating an environment for any remaining seeds to get a foothold.

[michael_aos]

I purchased one of the AEB-L blades with this in mind.

I'm still not sure if I really want to try using it that way, but it's an option.

I installed a set of "factory" black G-10 scales on the AEB-L Mule Team and a Mule Team 2 CPM SPY27 last night. That brings my total to 3 along with the Mule Team CPM REX T15.

I noticed a slice on my thumb this evening. Pretty sure it was from yesterday. At least one of them was so sharp I didn't even notice it immediately.
--

I believe AEB-L blades are still available, and those seem like a decent bet for testing. Not difficult to sharpen up after invevitable blade damage going into the dirt, and pretty tough - hopefully enough so to avoid chipping.

Best of luck if you do try, and please share your results if so

[tcarltonw]

The way these things grow, I think something like a "harvesting" knife is about right.

You basically just ball the plant up in one hand, and then slice it off level or slightly below the surface and it comes out as one big bunch. A single plant can fill up a 5-gallon bucket.

You generally want to disturb the soil (and the plant) as little as possible to avoid creating an environment for any remaining seeds to get a foothold.

Just looked up the weed. I was thinking it was more of a vertical growing weed. After seeing it your best bet is to try and pull it w/entire root system intact. If the ground is too hard to accomplish this(it breaks before coming out whole) you can water the ground enough to soften things up.

[grandpahack]

Short answer, no, I don't think a mule would be a great blade for your described task.

Long answer....

Long time lurker, recently signed up, and here with my first post and some experience that might be of use to you. I weed my yard with a knife, and I have cycled through multiple knife manufacturers, steels (including 420hc, 12c27, 3v, cruwear, 20cv), and blade/edge geometries (recurve, drop point, clip point, wharncliff, in hollow/flat/sabre grinds) trying to find one that works pretty well in what is an overtly abusive environment. I too have sandy, rocky soil, and while I don't have goat weed, I do have bull thistle, clover, and dandelions, oh my!

In my experience, a plain edge dulls quickly and makes weeding frustrating. Even high hardness/high carbide steels are brutalized by repeated thrusting through sandy dirt. This is like an CATRA test, only with sandy dandelions instead of silica impregnated cardstock. The cruwear PM2 in this pic did pretty well (you can see what my soil does to the DLC), but it would still be super blunt (as in can't cut a dandelion root) by the end of an hour plucking dandelions. Cruwear is obviously a different material from those currently available in mules, but the PM2 blade shape and size are similar. I don't have a mule for comparison, though once the K294 mule is released I'll fix that . If you want/have to do a plain edge, I think the wharncliff profile did the best to preserve/protect the cutting edge, since the cutting edge encounters less of the abrasive material while entering the ground. You should still be prepared to sharpen after every weeding session.

The knife I am on now is the Byrd Cara Cara Rescue 2 in 8Cr13MoV. It has a 4" serrated edge, long enough to reach under most plants, and with a thick enough spine and tough enough steel to permit some torquing without me worrying about fracture or chipping. I ended up modifying the tip a bit with a regular hardware store bastard file, though even the unmodified blunt end got into my dirt without too much effort - you can see before and after in the pics below. My initial impression, based on a about a week of use thus far, is that the serrated edge holds its cutting power better than expected, and far better than I was expecting for the 8Cr steel in this environment. I suspect that the leading edge of the serration protects the trailing edge and valley from some of the abrasive wear, and I am then using this protected edge to cut.

I have sharpened it a couple-three times this week, as much to get a sense for sharpening serrations as out of need. When sharp, it shaves hair and easily cuts paper. While it does neither of those after a few minutes in the yard, I am still getting the roots cut and the weeds out. Of all the knives I tried, this one has the greatest promise so far under these circumstances. It will be interesting to see how the serrations and my opinion hold up over the summer.

I hope this helps - let me know if you have other questions or need clarification on this, my newest short story, Knife Choices for Weeding in Awful Soil.

[Michael Janich]

Dear grandpahack:

Welcome to the Spyderco Forum.

Stay safe,

Mike

[Bolster]

Short answer, no, I don't think a mule would be a great blade for your described task.

Long answer....

Long time lurker, recently signed up...

Awesome first post! Wow, you are REALLY putting your steel to a severe test! Welcome to the mule tribe! Now go get your MNOSD number ASAP...

[michael_aos]

I wound up purchasing this DeWit Garden Knife to use instead. Haven't tried it yet.

Short answer, no, I don't think a mule would be a great blade for your described task.

[Ilocano73]

You might not need an expensive knife for the task. A butter knife would do since you need to pull the root out by plunging the butter knife near the root and push down, levering the root slightly so you can pull it out easily. If you cut the stem without pulling the root, it will eventually grow out again within a week.