Human powered cultivation tools for large gardens

This is a great way to look for things now that we are in full swing of garage sale season!

Lol. I have a very old high wheel cultivator like that, but with wooden handles and more patina. (Rust, squeeky wheel, and chipped off paint). Still works great.
The best thing about these machines/tools. Is that they weren't powered by batteries or gas and oil.
When I was growing up they were powered by breakfast, a glass of milk, and the threat of your mom kicking your Ass if you didn't weed the garden.

We grow everything in raised beds or containers so the Garden Weasel (roller cultivator on a pole) works well and are somewhat common at estate sales for 5 bucks. One can never have too many trowels as they are so easy to misplace and the handles can be prone to failure depending on the design.
We collect them for future communities that aren't currently gardening. Tradecraft, my friends!

Ditto bypass pruners, also entirely too easy to misplace. I also grow things in raised beds but mine are small, so a stand up hand tiller works to break up the soil in spring. Happily, my community gardens plot gets tilled for me, but other than that it's hand tools. A 5 gal bucket and a 1/2 gal milk jug for hauling water works well.

OKCorral said:

We grow everything in raised beds or containers so the Garden Weasel (roller cultivator on a pole) works well and are somewhat common at estate sales for 5 bucks.

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I have one of those as well, very convenient to use.

Trackball said:

A month ago I bought myself a manual subsurface cultivator (?)... I didn't find the correct English translation.
Small impression after a month of use.
The tool is sharpened on both sides and on the side of the bend, so it is very convenient to cut weeds in hard-to-reach places.
With this tool, I was able to: prepare the beds, remove some weeds, hill the bushes.
Very handy for my clay soil.
I recommend.


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Around here we call that a shuffle hoe ( or one version of it)

We have our gardens laid out in "rows" but those are dedicated spaced about 2.5' wide. We walk in our walkways and plant in our planting beds. We do not plant in our walkways and we do not walk in our planting beds. Over time, the beds become way less compacted and much easier to work the soil in. A broadfork and a rake can do wonders at getting the soil ready to plant in. A scuffle hoe, and similar, can be wonderful for weeding while those little weeds are tiny and a person can cover quite a lot of territory with one of those tools in a surprisingly small amount of time. It's usually more a matter of "will" someone do it than "can" someone do it.

Also very Russian - the 'Miricle Shovel'
Russian soil preparation tool - ordinary and innovative - YouTube

another variation (with base leverage post
FORCONE ZAPPATORE TORNADICA - YouTube

Faster, but not as granular
Супер, турбо, чудо лопата! Копати город - це легко! - YouTube

If you have heavy clay soil and need to work in compost, sand or manure to amend the base, these can make a job a bit less strenuous. .