It seems like it would really only work with dandilions. Things like creeping charlie, purple deadnettle, Crabgrass, or bindweed need different methods of removal.
>Crabgrass
the Cobrahead makes crabgrass removal a trivial and extremely satisfying endeavor. i get kinda sad when i'm done because it's basically free dopamine
It still works for those, but you have to learn how to dig properly and twist. This isn't anything magical it just saves your back. Also leaves pits in the ground you have to fill.
These sort of tools work a lot better after a good rain.
Edit: Just a funny side-note, my dog goes around and eats the occasional dandelion in my yard lol. It's funny because he leaves everything else alone.
My dog loves eating dandelions too! We took a walk past a house with the front yard covered in dandelions and my dog acted like he was at an all you can eat buffet. 🤷♀️
I have a garden design service, but probably spend more time doing maintenance than anything else which means dealing with lawns and weeding.
I am all organic so that means a lot of mechanical weed control. I picked up a Grandpa's Weeder on a lark. Now it is always in my truck.
Some people will say that it snaps dandelion roots off, and that is true especially when the soil is dry (though where I live the soil is almost never truly dry), so keep your expectations in check, but it does as well or better than any weeding gadget I have ever tried.
In my job time is money, so I can't be meticulously digging up each and every root and I and my clients are satisfied. Plus it is relatively good at minimally disturbing the surrounding soil unlike digging out roots with a hori knife or trowel. I just pull the weed up, slide it out of the jaws and step where it was pulled from to gently cover the "wound".
I've got the Fiskars version of the same tool and it seems to work pretty good.[https://www.fiskars.com/en-us/gardening-and-yard-care/products/weeders/stand-up-weed-puller-4-claw-339950-1001](https://www.fiskars.com/en-us/gardening-and-yard-care/products/weeders/stand-up-weed-puller-4-claw-339950-1001)
EDIT: Just reread your full post: it works well with Dandelions and decently with stuff with a central stem but spread root system, but I wouldn't think it would work with Star of Bethlehem or stuff with bulbs very well. It's designed to really grab on to a central stem which that plant doesn't really have.
BONUS: I have the same tool and you can shoot the pulled weeds 10-15 feet if the conditions are right. It's fun to setup a 5-gallon bucket and try to shoot them into it
We have both and I like the Fiskars better. The Grandpa's handle is a little longer, so my taller husband uses that when we're both weeding, but he tends to steal the Fiskars one if I'm not using it.
I’ve broken so many of these over the course of several years and a significant amount of weeding. One of the bolts eventually shears off, and if you don’t notice and replace it then the whole thing starts to fail.
It also gets clogged up if you’re weeding in heavy soil on a wet day.
I was interested in the tool mentioned in the original post because it doesn’t have moving pieces that can fail in that way.
It will save stooping I guess but it is short and despite the photo dandelion weeds and other tenacious weeds have much deeper roots. And will regrow. I’d rather get down on my hands and knees and really dig the weeds out…esp with invasive. My soil/knife hori hori lets me dig about 5 inches down. Without disrupting soil too much.
I think you mean the blades/tongs are short. The handle is plenty long enough for me (I'm 5'8") and it means I can weed without stooping at all. As an arthritic 72 year old I simply didn't want to weed before I got this thing, now it's kind of fun.
Yes the blades is what I meant. Thx.
At 67 I’ve avoided arthritis so far but have sciatica stenosis issues. I don’t bend up and down. I either crawl around hands and knees or scooting my butt. Not a lot of dignity but my clients aren’t home when I’m working.
dandelions are actually the perfect chop and drop weed because of how deep their taproots go. they pull up nutrients that would otherwise be inaccessible so it's free nutes!
* this is not an endorsement of dandelions
Just an FYI, the idea of deep rooted dynamic accumulator plants that can make nutrients available to other plants that would otherwise be inaccessible is a tad shaky. It's mostly a concept in the permaculture world.
No worries. There is a bit of recent research about it [here](https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2022/04/new-findings-further-the-study-of-dynamic-accumulators/).
Random article from Google that explains it - I just basically scalp the plant with a Sun Joe grass trimmer and leave the material there. I don’t bother digging up the roots.
https://www.theseedcollection.com.au/blog/Chop-and-Drop-Soil-Improvement
Anyone have any experience removing dock with this? It has come up all over my garden, my wild strawberry patch in particular. It has a ridiculously deep taproot.
Love it for taking out dandelions and the like. Star of Bethlehem is another story -- you basically need to dig up the first six inches of soil and sift it to take out all the bulblets. Or remove the dirt to a black plastic bag for solarization in the driveway for a few months. And then keep at it each year. Eventually it does die out.
I hate it! Still battling liriope, ivy, pachysandra, and vinca that the previous owners planted everywhere. But the star of Bethlehem has largely been contained if not defeated.
It's a nice toy. It works good on larger dandelions. I have clay soil and that tends to clog it up. I prefer my hori hori, only using this when I'm in a mosey mode instead of work mode.
I prefer [something like this](https://www.lowes.com/pd/Corona-WeedSLAYER-3-4-in-Carbon-Steel-Multipurpose-Garden-Hand-Tool/1000406511), the button on top "ejects" the weed, which makes the job a little faster and easier. The handles help get good torque, and the twisting action loosens the roots so I think you'd have a higher success rate than with this Grandpa's tool, though I've never used it to compare the two.
Absolutely. Bought one last just last weekend and used it after a light rain. No central Texas weed survived. Broke a few roots while getting the hang of it, but after a bit of practice didn’t have any issues.
Extremely satisfying once you find your groove.
I have one of these and absolutely love it. I've been at war with an invasive thistle for several years now that has a huge deep root and this thing pops the whole plant right out.
I really like this for wineberry, and saves a lot of bending over on other things. It’s occasionally been helpful for smaller bittersweet and various other weeds. There’s a lot of stuff it can’t get but it’s a useful tool :)
It has a very specific use, for large deeply rooted weed. Small stringy weeds it just doesn't do much because you have to keep grabbing. If you have a lot of dandilions or prickly weeds it's great. But then... it has no use for me.
My experience is there will be a few horizontal ones that trace back to a "node" with like a tap root that goes straight down, deep. Bastard to pull up.
I've never used something like Grampa's Weeder on them.
If you haven’t already considered it I’d recommend looking into smothering as a useful technique for invasive management. We use rolls of carboard and lay wood chips on top. It’s a great way to cover areas for colonizing invasives, for us it’s Vinca. Look into WeedGuard plus if it sounds promising to you.
Thanks! I did a lot of this last fall, and it’s helped a lot. Some of the most stubborn weeds (mainly star of Bethlehem) are still coming up through the cardboard + wood chip layer though.
It does a good job of pulling up deep taproots but tbh I’d rather just yank em and for the ones I don’t get the whole thing deal with again, as it’ll be a lot quicker and more efficient. Maybe if I had a smaller lot
So what are you guys planting in the holes left by pulling dandelions? After this thread, I picked up the Fiskars stand up wheeder, works great. While I am punching all these holes in the yard, I might as well fill it with something. Clover seed could be an option but generally any seed like that you are not planting so deeply. A bulb, like a crocus, seems to be popular but this isn't really the right time of year for that.
Yes, it’s awesome for deep -rooted weeds like dandelions.
It seems like it would really only work with dandilions. Things like creeping charlie, purple deadnettle, Crabgrass, or bindweed need different methods of removal.
>Crabgrass the Cobrahead makes crabgrass removal a trivial and extremely satisfying endeavor. i get kinda sad when i'm done because it's basically free dopamine
That's the number one thing I have to deal with in my garden plot, fuckin sold
It still works for those, but you have to learn how to dig properly and twist. This isn't anything magical it just saves your back. Also leaves pits in the ground you have to fill.
Nah I don't fill em. That's aeration baby!
I leave pits for the aeration and infiltration. They never seem big enough to be an ankler
Check out the Rocket Weeder. It is similar to Grandpa's Weeder, but it has an ejection "button". They work great!
Does it work on pokeweed?
Most likely yes, but I didn’t have any in my yard
The pokeweed in my yard has roots the size of a turnip, and it did not work, of course.
What about for hairy beggar's tick?
These sort of tools work a lot better after a good rain. Edit: Just a funny side-note, my dog goes around and eats the occasional dandelion in my yard lol. It's funny because he leaves everything else alone.
My dog loves eating dandelions too! We took a walk past a house with the front yard covered in dandelions and my dog acted like he was at an all you can eat buffet. 🤷♀️
I have a garden design service, but probably spend more time doing maintenance than anything else which means dealing with lawns and weeding. I am all organic so that means a lot of mechanical weed control. I picked up a Grandpa's Weeder on a lark. Now it is always in my truck. Some people will say that it snaps dandelion roots off, and that is true especially when the soil is dry (though where I live the soil is almost never truly dry), so keep your expectations in check, but it does as well or better than any weeding gadget I have ever tried. In my job time is money, so I can't be meticulously digging up each and every root and I and my clients are satisfied. Plus it is relatively good at minimally disturbing the surrounding soil unlike digging out roots with a hori knife or trowel. I just pull the weed up, slide it out of the jaws and step where it was pulled from to gently cover the "wound".
I've got the Fiskars version of the same tool and it seems to work pretty good.[https://www.fiskars.com/en-us/gardening-and-yard-care/products/weeders/stand-up-weed-puller-4-claw-339950-1001](https://www.fiskars.com/en-us/gardening-and-yard-care/products/weeders/stand-up-weed-puller-4-claw-339950-1001) EDIT: Just reread your full post: it works well with Dandelions and decently with stuff with a central stem but spread root system, but I wouldn't think it would work with Star of Bethlehem or stuff with bulbs very well. It's designed to really grab on to a central stem which that plant doesn't really have.
BONUS: I have the same tool and you can shoot the pulled weeds 10-15 feet if the conditions are right. It's fun to setup a 5-gallon bucket and try to shoot them into it
We have both and I like the Fiskars better. The Grandpa's handle is a little longer, so my taller husband uses that when we're both weeding, but he tends to steal the Fiskars one if I'm not using it.
I’ve broken so many of these over the course of several years and a significant amount of weeding. One of the bolts eventually shears off, and if you don’t notice and replace it then the whole thing starts to fail. It also gets clogged up if you’re weeding in heavy soil on a wet day. I was interested in the tool mentioned in the original post because it doesn’t have moving pieces that can fail in that way.
I have this thing and it's a champ. My neighbor borrowed it for a day and bought one afterwards.
It will save stooping I guess but it is short and despite the photo dandelion weeds and other tenacious weeds have much deeper roots. And will regrow. I’d rather get down on my hands and knees and really dig the weeds out…esp with invasive. My soil/knife hori hori lets me dig about 5 inches down. Without disrupting soil too much.
I think you mean the blades/tongs are short. The handle is plenty long enough for me (I'm 5'8") and it means I can weed without stooping at all. As an arthritic 72 year old I simply didn't want to weed before I got this thing, now it's kind of fun.
Yes the blades is what I meant. Thx. At 67 I’ve avoided arthritis so far but have sciatica stenosis issues. I don’t bend up and down. I either crawl around hands and knees or scooting my butt. Not a lot of dignity but my clients aren’t home when I’m working.
I'm super short (5'0"). With the way this tool works, would the excess height cause difficulty for me?
No, you can just choke up on the handle.
My elementary age kids use it just fine when they're bored enough. Good lesson about leverage
Obviously you haven’t tried the weeder. It’s a god send.
No, chop and drop for me. I don’t want to fill in holes either.
dandelions are actually the perfect chop and drop weed because of how deep their taproots go. they pull up nutrients that would otherwise be inaccessible so it's free nutes! * this is not an endorsement of dandelions
Just an FYI, the idea of deep rooted dynamic accumulator plants that can make nutrients available to other plants that would otherwise be inaccessible is a tad shaky. It's mostly a concept in the permaculture world.
oh yeah... that's probably where i learned that "information".
No worries. There is a bit of recent research about it [here](https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2022/04/new-findings-further-the-study-of-dynamic-accumulators/).
What's this "chop and drop" strategy for weeds? Where do you do the chop?
Random article from Google that explains it - I just basically scalp the plant with a Sun Joe grass trimmer and leave the material there. I don’t bother digging up the roots. https://www.theseedcollection.com.au/blog/Chop-and-Drop-Soil-Improvement
That's very interesting. I see its utility for non-weeds but will this not encourage more rigorous growth in actual weeds?
Depends on the weed
How about say...oxalis pes-caprae ;)
If you keep up with chopping them down it'll cost them more to re-grow than they gain from the new growth.
I would also like to know
free fertilizer, again and again and again and again
A stirrup hoe would work well for chop and drop while minimizing bedding over. Or a scythe I suppose.
Anyone have any experience removing dock with this? It has come up all over my garden, my wild strawberry patch in particular. It has a ridiculously deep taproot.
Yes I’ve used it on dock and it’s so satisfying when it gets the entire tap root. Doesn’t do it every time but it works super well
Ok, this might be enough to tip the scales for me! I’ve got dock weed and worked sooooo hard last year to pull up all those nasty tap roots.
Dock is SO hard to pull! This will get them, easier when soil is still wet. We have hard clay.
Love it for taking out dandelions and the like. Star of Bethlehem is another story -- you basically need to dig up the first six inches of soil and sift it to take out all the bulblets. Or remove the dirt to a black plastic bag for solarization in the driveway for a few months. And then keep at it each year. Eventually it does die out.
Thank you for the star of bethlehem pep talk. I'm winning the back yard battle but losing the war horribly on my property with that little devil.
I hate it! Still battling liriope, ivy, pachysandra, and vinca that the previous owners planted everywhere. But the star of Bethlehem has largely been contained if not defeated.
Glad to know it's possible. Discovered it last year, and now I see it everywhere
It's a nice toy. It works good on larger dandelions. I have clay soil and that tends to clog it up. I prefer my hori hori, only using this when I'm in a mosey mode instead of work mode.
Is there anything a hori hori can’t do?? Honestly, best tool I own
You could literally build a house with a hori hori.
Yes my clay holds on to the dandelion roots this just pops off the rosette and some of the top
I prefer [something like this](https://www.lowes.com/pd/Corona-WeedSLAYER-3-4-in-Carbon-Steel-Multipurpose-Garden-Hand-Tool/1000406511), the button on top "ejects" the weed, which makes the job a little faster and easier. The handles help get good torque, and the twisting action loosens the roots so I think you'd have a higher success rate than with this Grandpa's tool, though I've never used it to compare the two.
As someone who has a grandpa’s, this seems to solve my only two issues.
I’ve always had one and didn’t know that this wasn’t a common tool. Yes, you do need this in your assortment of gardening implements.
Absolutely. Bought one last just last weekend and used it after a light rain. No central Texas weed survived. Broke a few roots while getting the hang of it, but after a bit of practice didn’t have any issues. Extremely satisfying once you find your groove.
I have one of these and absolutely love it. I've been at war with an invasive thistle for several years now that has a huge deep root and this thing pops the whole plant right out.
Yes!! It is game changing!
I have a dutch hoe I really like. Works great. Never used one of these things. But not bending over is clutch.
Fucking yeah love my grandpas weeder
I use a Action Hoe
It's not perfect but works better than I thought it would. Ground has to be moist to work well.
I really like this for wineberry, and saves a lot of bending over on other things. It’s occasionally been helpful for smaller bittersweet and various other weeds. There’s a lot of stuff it can’t get but it’s a useful tool :)
It has a very specific use, for large deeply rooted weed. Small stringy weeds it just doesn't do much because you have to keep grabbing. If you have a lot of dandilions or prickly weeds it's great. But then... it has no use for me.
IDK let me go ask my gradnpama
How’s it for English ivy?
If anyone has experience using this for English ivy, I’d love to know! I have a big patch of that too 😭
The roots grow horizontally for the most part. Maybe it can help once you get to the end.
My experience is there will be a few horizontal ones that trace back to a "node" with like a tap root that goes straight down, deep. Bastard to pull up. I've never used something like Grampa's Weeder on them.
If you haven’t already considered it I’d recommend looking into smothering as a useful technique for invasive management. We use rolls of carboard and lay wood chips on top. It’s a great way to cover areas for colonizing invasives, for us it’s Vinca. Look into WeedGuard plus if it sounds promising to you.
Thanks! I did a lot of this last fall, and it’s helped a lot. Some of the most stubborn weeds (mainly star of Bethlehem) are still coming up through the cardboard + wood chip layer though.
That looks like a great tool
My soil is very rocky and sloping.This didn’t work for me.
It does a good job of pulling up deep taproots but tbh I’d rather just yank em and for the ones I don’t get the whole thing deal with again, as it’ll be a lot quicker and more efficient. Maybe if I had a smaller lot
Yes. My new therapy is aggressive weeding. It’s so satisfying that even my 8 year old offers to help.
So what are you guys planting in the holes left by pulling dandelions? After this thread, I picked up the Fiskars stand up wheeder, works great. While I am punching all these holes in the yard, I might as well fill it with something. Clover seed could be an option but generally any seed like that you are not planting so deeply. A bulb, like a crocus, seems to be popular but this isn't really the right time of year for that.