The Hori Hori Knife: My New Favorite Garden Tool

Evidently, this multi-use tool originated several hundred years ago in Japan. It was originally a mountain farmers tool and bonsai gardeners seem to most prevalently claim it as their own. It is said that the bonsai gardeners/farmers used to climb high into to mountains with their hori hori knives to dig promising specimens off of the rocky cliff faces. Another story that I ran across indicates that an ancient Shogun grew fearful of the farmer-warriors and ordered that all swords be confiscated from anyone who was not samurai. It was then illegal for anyone not of the sword bearing class to have a sword. In order to protect themselves, the farmers designed tools that were legal and could double as weapons.

Some folks tell us that the Japanese verb to dig or excavates is horu. The name of the knife, hori hori, is derived from the verb to dig. I don’t know which, if any of these stories is true. I do know that there are many uses for the hori hori knife. So, first, what is a hori hori knife?

It is traditionally a wooden handled, wide bladed knife made from carbon steel. The blade is between four and seven inches long and is wide. The blade is thick and concave for strength and ease of digging.  One side of the blade is smooth and sharp. The other side is serrated for sawing off those dang big roots. It is the most versatile garden tool that I own. I use it for planting, weeding, digging rows, digging out roots, digging holes for roots, cutting irrigation pipes, dead-heading, pruning, digging rows…I carry it with me all the time. When you buy one you will want to get a sheath for it and keep it sharp.

Over time, some garden genius put measuring markings on the blade of the hori hori so that you can properly space your plantings. Then they started making them out of stainless steel for those of us who are tool maintenance challenged. If you have trouble remembering where you put down your tools, you will want to be careful with your hori hori knife. I have read stories of folks who inadvertently bury their knives under plants and have to borrow metal detectors from their mother-in-law and get mercilessly ribbed at family gatherings for years to come. So, in order to avoid my ‘friends’ fate, you may want to paint the handle of your hori hori knife a bright color, or purchase one that has a brightly colored handle.

When looking for your knife, because you will use it all the time, make sure that the blade extends into the handle. If the blade is welded on to the handle, it will eventually snap off when you are using it. Spend more to get a sturdy hori hori knife and avoid buying three. The carbon steel knives will need regular sharpening. If you don’t have a whet stone, you will want to get one. I am feeling traditionalist recently and bought the carbon steel hori hori knife. Sharpening your knife yourself make you feel more connected to your tool and, as a consequence, more present in your garden when using your tool. As you use your knife more and more, you will enjoy gardening more and more.

How should you sharpen and care for you hori hori knife? You can take it to your local kitchen store or knife shop and pay someone to do it..or you can learn to do it yourself. First you need a whetstone. You want to look for a high quality carborundum stone with a smooth side and coarse side. If you get a cheap stone, you will get mad later and buy a better stone. So skip the cheap stone and get the good one.

If your knife is dull, start with the coarse stone. This is ‘roughing’ the blade. Roughing will leave a coarse edge that will cut fibrous material but not work for fine cutting. When you prune and work with your plants, you want good, clean cuts. So, sharpen your knife all the way – two steps.

Step one is roughing. The rough, you should wet or oil your stone according to the manufacturer’s directions. Hold your hori hori knife at about 20 degrees to the stone (pretend that you are cutting a piece off of the stone and you will get the angle about right). Use consistent strokes in only one direction making sure that you keep the angel to the stone consistent. First in the coarse side, and then on the fine side of the stone. The fine side sharpening is step two.

Okay, now for the safety bit…don’t hold the sharpening stone in your hand, you will cut yourself. Secondly, if you never cut toward yourself, you can never get cut.

If you care for your hori hori knife, it will take care of you and your garden. I love mine and use it all the time.

The EPA and Pesticides

According the to United States Environmental Protection Agency, there are over 20,000 pesticides containing 620 active ingredients on the market in the US.  More than 1,000,000,000 (One billion) pounds of active ingredients in conventional pesticides are applied each year in the United States.  Thats over three pounds for every man, woman, and child who is a citizen of the United States.  That in itself is alarming.  Even more alarming is the government’s information on the potential health effects of pesticides.  I am quoting the EPA’s own FAQ here: “The health effects of pesticides depend on the type of pesticide.  Some, such as the organophosphates and carbamates, affect the nervous system.  Other may irritate the skin of eyes. Some pesticides may be carcinogens.  Others may affect the hormone or endocrine system in the body.”  Stay away from the commercially grown food!  Save money and eat healthy and – grow your own organic food!!

The EPA is in charge of our safety from pesticides.  They get a large helping hand from the manufacturers of the pesticides.  The EPA is charged with setting maximum levels of pesticides likely to be found in food.  That is not a typo, I took it straight from an EPA page…”maximum levels likely to be found in food”…not actually found in food, but likely to be found. “The EPA accomplishes this by requiring pesticide manufacturers to submit data that answer basic questions about what residues are present in foods and in what quantities.”  The manufacturers submit data regarding the residues of pesticides found on crops grown in the field when applied using the highest rate allowed by the product label.  So the manufacturer of the pesticide delivers the data to the EPA and the EPA decides on how much pesticide is okay for us to eat. I love the taste of orthophosphates in the morning! Do you trust the pesticide manufacturers with the safety of your food?  If not, the only way to make sure that our food supply is safer is to grow you own organic food.

The EPA also requires a battery of toxicity tests in laboratory animals to determine a pesticide’s potential for causing adverse health effects, such as cancer, birth defects, and adverse effects on the nervous system or other organs. Tests are conducted for both short-term (acute) and long-term (chronic) toxicity. For chronic effects other than cancer, laboratory animals are exposed to different doses of a pesticide to determine the level at which no adverse effects occur. This level is divided by an uncertainty or “safety” factor (usually 100) to account for the uncertainty of extrapolating from laboratory animals to humans and for individual human differences in sensitivity. The resulting figure, termed the Reference Dose, is the level of exposure that EPA judges an individual could be exposed to on a daily basis for a lifetime with minimal probability of experiencing any adverse effect. [Quoted from EPA Factsheet].

So let me get this straight, the EPA finds a pesticide that makes us sick and then they decide how much of that we can eat.  Who checks on the farms?  Who checks at the grocery store?  Anybody want some peanuts?  I am not saying that the EPA is bad.  They do a commendable job.  I think that we should be surprised that there are not more serious health problems and outbreaks of food related illness;but how many chronic illnesses and “adverse” health effects are the cause of pesticide exposure over the course of a lifetime?  Could neurological disorders be the result of  exposure to organophosphates and carbamates?  How would you know?  If you grow your own food, you know exactly what was put on it.  You know exactly what your children are eating!  What if you could save money growing your own organic vegetables at home?  You can! Read a book and go outside! Feed your children healthy food and lower your grocery bill. You can do it.  You just have to go out in the yard and get started!

Deep Beds, Double Digging, and Organic Vegetable Gardening

Deep Bed Gardening  The How and Why for Increased Yields in Your Organic Garden!

I have always had a limited amount of space in which to garden… well except for when I summered at my grandparents farm in Lone Hickory, North Carolina; but I was eight years old then. There was plenty of space out there…but I was small. The amount of space I used for pole beans and such amounted to a couple of rows out in the kitchen garden.  I don’t remember exactly, but I don’t recall using pesticides and fertilizer.  I think we may have been organic back then in the early seventies.  Go figure…

Now that I have owned a couple of homes and grown into a fresh vegetable lover and semi tree hugger, I have had to figure out the best way to grow the most organic vegetables in a limited amount of space. I guess I got lucky because I was always drawn to raised beds.  It just seemed to me that if the soil I had was questionable, the best way to grow good food fast was with high quality soil in a raised bed.  Little did I know  that raised beds and wide rows have been shown to allow closer crop planting and vastly increased output of vegetables grown in this manner.  The reason is all in the roots.  How far do you think that a carrot root will extend from the carrot?  Up to three feet down and one and a half feet sideways!!! You have to give’em room to grow!!

Plants are much happier growing in loose deep soil. [you also get fewer weeds and pests when your plants are happy making organic vegetable growing even easier].  The plants have room to stretch out.  Aren’t you happier when you have room to stretch?  Who likes being crammed into a plane with no room? Your garden feels the same way… So, exactly how do you make your plants happy and give them room to grow?

First, pick a good spot to grow your organic vegetables.  Full sun and good drainage are important.  Remember, don’t tie yourself to squares and rectangles, your bed can be any shape – try a circle, a parallel-o-gram, or a star.  You can even plant your vegetables intermixed with some flowering annuals cottage garden style.

After you pick your location and shape, you need to make friends with double digging.  Lay out your bed with twine, lime, baking soda, or stakes.  Then across one end of your bed (the shorter way), dig a trench the width of your shovel and about a foot deep.  Put that dirt in a wheel barrow – you’ll fill in the last row with that dirt.  After you have removed the soil, take a garden fork and loosen the soil in the bottom of the hole by working it with the fork.  Move to the area directly adjacent to your dug out trench and dig another trench across your bed.  The trench is again the width of your shovel and about a foot deep.  Put the  soil from this trench back into the first trench that you dug.  Loosen the soil in the bottom of the second trench with the garden fork.  Rinse and repeat until you get to the end of your bed.  Fill in the last trench with the soil from you wheelbarrow.  Hooray!! You have a deep bed. [Note bene: you probably want to work some compost into the soil as you refill your trenches.  This will increase your soil quality and, conveniently, your vegetable output.]

How big should you make your rows in your organic vegetable garden?  I make mine four feet wide.  Yours should be as wide as you can make them and still comfortably be able to work in the middle of the beds/rows.  The walkways are narrow.  Thus maximizing your growing areas and minimizing your wasted space.

So, get out there and garden!!! Grow your own organic vegetables.  Feed your family good food and, most importantly, have fun!!

“Start Vegetable Gardening”

As I was looking around on Amazon.com I found this super duper how-to, guide, mini ad for his book…in any event it has some excellent ideas and resources for getting started on growing your own kitchen garden – that mean you can eat all the stuff you grow.  Just give it a click, let me know what you thing. Peace and happy gardeners make happy vegetables.

Start Gardening How-To Guide Book and Resource List