This is an economy version. It's heat-treated rather than spring steel.
https://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=737
Question re: use of compost
This one looks the same as the first one with the exception of the paint. Other than that I don't know what the difference is. It's a little more money than the first one & comes in two sizes.
https://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1297
>> I have a heavy duty garden fork which is working quite well at getting under the rhizomes. Then I wack off the rhizomes with a lopper!
Cool! I have a long-armed thing like a bolt-cutting for chopping hard roots and woody stems. If the soil is not TOO rocky, I may chop at them with a mattock, but the "bolt-cutter" always hit the target and take it out with one snip.
Sometimes I dig well-established low junipers out of rock-and-clay soil.
Pick, mattock, bolt-cutter.
Pick, mattock, bolt-cutter.
Remove one shovelfull of clay & rocks.
Pick, mattock, bolt-cutter.
Pick, mattock, bolt-cutter.
Remove one shovelfull of clay & rocks.
reapeat
repeat
Corey
nutsaboutnature - I haven't kept bees since 1985. I gave away the bees and supers to a commercial beekeeper - but kept the hive tool and staple gun.
Hubby has given it a coat of red paint, so I can see it when it gets dropped in the garden.
I recognized the name Dadant - they must have been in business for a number of years, because I think that's where I purchased my beekeeping supplies.
HoneybeeNC - Dadant's website says they've been in business over 140 years!
It's been over 30 years since I had bees. I no longer had any supplies, but when my husband was looking for a tool to help him do a particular project & he planned to make the tool himself (something he has done often) I remembered the Hive Tool & showed him a picture. The rest is history.
>> he planned to make the tool himself (something he has done often)
Yeah! You go, boy!
I don't bend over very well, so I bought a cheap golf club from Goodwill. When i find just the right tip at the dollar store, i plan to graft a weeder tip onto the shaft of the club.
A long-term plan was to grind down a bayonette into a two-prong tip, but that would take HOURS of grinding and still only be 20-25" long. Plus, what would the neighbors think?
I already use a "spike bayonett" for really toguh weeds in heavy clay. I have to bend over, but can thrust it fairly deep, and then a little wrist action works it like a swizzle stick around the root, and sometimes I can pop out a cone of root + clay.
If I could find the WW I hardware that joins a bayonett to a rifle, I might mount THAT on a golf club, and have a long-handled bayonett.
When the police come and take me away, please tell them that "DG" isn't some militia group, that we really ARE gardeners!
Corey
Oh, you're too funny Corey!
But isn't it rewarding to invent things that do the job you wanted them to do? Kind of makes you feel warm & fuzzy all over.
nutsaboutnature - I gave up apiculture in 1985 when I openend my own business in Palm Beach County, Florida and didn't have time to care for them anymore.
If the supers weren't so heavy, I'd probably have a hive in the corner of my garden, but I can't lift heavy loads anymore :(
>> isn't it rewarding to invent things that do the job
Oh, yes! And the stranger and more outrageous, the better!
If a solution makes so much sense and is so convetional a use of materials that someone else already invented it, where's the fun in that?
Corey
Corey, what're you planning to use your Kustom Killer Klub for? Weeding?
Corey
have you checked out this sight? www.bamboogarden.com Ned Saguith runs it and it is incredible.
some pretty cool tools there everyone got.
Jan
Jan, thanks for the link to bamboo garden - I have saved it for future reference.
I think I might try establishing some raised beds next year where the bamboo is growing, and hope I can keep the culms (shoots) under control. The area is large enough for about six 24' x 3' beds, and I can certainly use the extra space to grow more food.
Jan,
Thnaks for reminding me to look at
http://www.bamboogarden.com / Ned Saguith
They were on my list of vendors, but either I never looked closely at their prices (including S&H) or somehow I forgot. They have GOO DEALS!
I'm puting "Bamboo Garden" at the top of my list.
But I still have to decide what species, if not Fargesia robusta (culms may be too thin). I've started to think that if it "can grow to" 1 1/2 inch diameter, in my yard it MAY only grow to 1/2" diameter.
First and foremost: I have small yard so CLUMPER, not RUNNER. I guess I would consder a "spreading clumper".
We have rare winters down to zero Fahrenheit, so I was picking that as my Hardiness limit. But average winters only go down to 10 F. I heard that "hardiness" zones for bamboo might indicate when LEAVES die and fall off, but not severaly damage the plant itslef. What do you think? I don't want to plant something that take 5+ years to grow to full size, but is killed or severaly damaged by frost every 10-20 years.
I think half-inch poles would meet my needs, and I would like to get 6-10 foot usable lengths. So maybe I should look for a species "rated at" 1-2 inch diameter and 12-20 feet tall.
I have a bundle of rather thin poles from Home Depot, and used them by overlapping them tip-to-tip, and lashing them together for more stiffness and length.
Corey
Corey - my advice to you and anyone else considering growing bamboo.
[B]NEVER, EVER PLANT BAMBOO![/B]
Sounds like the voice of experience, there!
But F. rufa, at least, is not a spreader. Maybe I've given it terrible conditions, but it's going wohere so far.
Maybe it's just slyly lying in wait until I stop wtaching it closely, then it will take over the yard.
Corey
honeybee
Please don't hate it so, but I know it is hard when you have a runner like yours. But for those of us with small back yards a clumper is the way to go. Now its not to say can't do a runner but I would so lay down a liner before I would ever attempt to grow one.
If I already had a place (and not renting) I found on craigs list some old concrete ponds that had been used in a fish raising business.... I would get those in a hart beat and dig our enough dirt to burry them half way down and then plant bamboo runners in them. That concrete would keep them contained. The wouldn't get as big as if they were planted in the ground but so what as least I could have the variety of bamboo that I want.
Jan