Wheel Hoe Buying Guide

Glaser Professional / single wheel hoe

Glaser is the oldest of the four brands, and it is the most expensive. It's design is similar to the original Planet Jr wheel hoe, but not a duplicate. It has a good collection of attachments, and a good reputation. Some of the old Planet Jr attachments and new Hoss attachments can be used on it, but not all so be sure to check first.

Hoss Standard / single wheel hoe

The Hoss is the most popular brand in the US due to it's reasonable price, great reputation, and large collection of attachments. Some of the old Planet Jr and new Glaser attachments can be used with it. Note that the wooden handles are bare, so a little extra time and cost is required to apply an oil finish to them.

Valley Oak / single wheel hoe

The Valley Oak design kept the basic small-wheeled wheel hoe geometry, but opted for a different method of attaching the tools. The tools attach to a square bar that extends back from the wheel. The company has a good reputation, but not having a double-wheel option, and having a smaller collection of attachments, does limit the possibilities.

Euro / single wheel hoe

The Euro is the most affordable wheel hoe. The design and appearance is very similar to the Valley Oak model. It also uses a square bar that extends back from the wheel for quickly attaching the tools. Handles pivot both up-down, and left-right for offset pushing. The Euro is only sold as a package with an 8" Oscillating Hoe, Tines, and a Furrowing Plow.

Terrateck / single wheel hoe

The Terrateck design is different from all the others. Their attachments all have a vertical bar that sticks upward and fits into a socket at the back of the frame. The company is fairly new to the US, but has been building a decent reputation. Their collection of attachments is large, and they brought some new things to the US, like Finger Weeders.

Excerpt from the MOTHER EARTH NEWS - June/July 2010:
Author: Cheryl Long

The Wheel Hoe: A Modern Weed Slayer

"...Just in time for the summer weed season, we've chosen the wheel cultivator as another Tool for Wiser Living. If you have a large garden, this old-time tool can really reduce weeding chores. Thomas Greiner describes it in his book, How to Make the Garden Pay, published in 1890:

But the tool of all tools, the modern weed slayer, the great labor saver, the greatest horticultural blessing of the age - that is the modern wheel hoe. This above all others frees the gardener from undesirable work, cuts down the labor account one-half, and makes tillage light and pleasant. The advantages connected with the possession of one of these tools cannot be overstated, nor emphasized too strongly, nor told too frequently. This tool reduces the unpleasant task of weeding to a minimum. Now the half-grown boy runs the wheeled hoe up and down the rows of vegetables 'for fun' and recreation, and accomplishes in one-half hour what a man with a hand hoe could not perform in a whole day...."
 

Excerpt from the Countryside & Small Stock Journal - January 1999:
Author: Jeff Rast

An Introduction to Garden Cultivators

"...Push cultivators come in several varieties, price ranges and performance levels. The oldest and probably still the most common is the high-wheeled cultivator. It simply consists of a large (24 inches), single wheel with two handles for the operator and one or more attachments. Mine comes with cultivating teeth, a duck-foot sweep and a furrowing attachment. The design allows me to cultivate between rows much faster than with a hand hoe and I can finish without a backache. Most high wheel versions cost between $75 to $100.

Another version of the wheel hoe for sale now has a much smaller wheel (9 inches) and a different angle of attachment of the handles to the wheel. Eliot Coleman states in his book The New Organic Grower that he prefers the design of the smaller models because they transfer the force exerted by the operator more directly to the working part. Makes sense. Furthermore, Coleman says that it is the "best cultivation tool for inter-row work on this 5-acre scale." On his smaller wheeled model, Coleman actually has a stirrup hoe rather than the cultivating teeth or sweep.

Low wheel models tend to be sturdier than the high wheel types and have more "engineering" in them. Prices reflect this difference and can run up to about $285....."
 

Excerpt from THE WASHINGTON POST - 8/19/2010:
Author: Barbara Damrosch

Home gardeners should take wheel hoes for a spin in their back yards

"...A few generations ago, wheeled cultivators were standard equipment for market gardeners and for home gardeners who grew much of their own food. An octogenarian neighbor who was raised on a large farm recalls how 20 workers would show up each morning and reach for just that implement. In those times, it was the tool by which large acreages were managed. Few would recognize it today.

A wheel hoe is simply a hoe blade mounted on a wheel. The wheel is there to lessen the work of moving the blade along, keep it a consistent distance from the soil and lend force to its cutting action. Wheel cultivators are designed so that you can weed close to crops planted in straight rows. They also do a championship job on dirt paths between beds. Nothing else makes such quick work of weeds in hard, trodden earth that would normally have you on your knees, stabbing peevishly with your trowel.

Modern versions of the wheeled hoe are more efficient than the ones my neighbor remembers because they use an oscillating blade, like that of a hula hoe, which cuts on both the forward and back strokes. Walk at a comfortable pace, pushing back and forth, and weeds are severed just below the surface so that none can regrow. Weeds too small to see are dispatched as well...."
 

Excerpt from The History of the Wheel Hoe
by Author: Professor John R Stilgoe

excerpted from "Scientific Authority & Twentieth Century America"

Throughout its history the firm emphasized its push cultivators and automatic seed drills, devices equipped with all manner of gadgets and practically impossible to describe briefly. Wheeled hoes came with one wheel or two: single wheel machines typically ran between rows of plants and sliced off or tore up weeds, while two-wheel machines straddled one row of plants and sliced off weeds on either side.....The firm claimed that with wheel hoes "one can plant four times his usually acreage of hoed crops from drilled seeds, without fear of being caught in their cultivation," Fourfold efficiency increases depended on the seed drill as well, and Allen and Company manufactured combination tools like the "Combined Drill, Wheel Hoe, Cultivator, Rake, and Plow," an 1892 near-top-of-the-line tool. "Every purchaser of this machine will find it an excellent seed sower; a first-class double-wheeled hoe while plants are small; an excellent furrower; an admirable push cultivator; a capital garden rake; a rapid and efficient wheel garden plow, and it is without an equal in a variety of tools, easy adjustment, lightness, strength, and beauty, and as a practical everyday time and labor saver." Allen tools had very specific applications, indeed, and in the end, that proved important to the man - or woman - with five acres of celery to plant and cultivate...
● read the rest of this Planet Jr History article