Ditch The Garden Hoe: Remove Weeds With An Easy-To-Use Tool At Home Depot

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There are so many types of garden hoes and they all differ, so it can feel like you're solving a puzzle when you're trying to pick a tool for an outdoor chore. For weeding, however, you might not want to use a hoe, even though they're a go-to implement. Home Depot has a tool that you can use to tackle a weed-filled garden bed or chop back tall grass in your yard. The Bully Tools 12-Gauge Weed Cutter features a fiberglass handle and a blade made out of 12-gauge, U.S.-produced steel. Instead of using force to cut or pull weeds out, you swing this tool back and forth to clear an area of unwanted greenery. While it's described by many happy Home Depot customers as easy to use, several reviewers noted that the blade could be sharper right off the shelf.

The handle, which is 45 inches long, has a soft rubber finish for better grip. The total weight of the tool is 3.5 pounds, and every product is balanced before it leaves the factory. Home Depot customers who recommended this tool highlighted its sturdiness, as did buyers elsewhere online. "This is not a flimsy tool, and as soon as I took it out of the package, it worked really well," wrote reviewer Cheri Phillippi on the Amazon listing for the product. The unique way this Bully Tools implement removes weeds makes it, according to some users, one of the lesser-known lawn tools you'll wish you had sooner. However, when it comes to the thick, 14-inch-long, 2¼-inch-deep blade, the story is a little different. Several reviewers on the Home Depot listing indicated that the tool arrived with a dull blade.

From pruners and shovels to hatchets and lawnmower blades, there are many gardening tools you should be sharpening regularly, including this one. Weeding tools, in particular, need sharp blades, or you'll be working inefficiently and tiring faster, meaning you can't work in the garden for as long. Whether they bought the tool through Home Depot or on Amazon, several customers noted that the Bully Tools 12-gauge weed cutter arrived with a sharp enough blade. For example, 5-star Amazon reviewer Texa$ wrote, "Enough velocity in your swing and it will take out pretty much anything smaller than your thumb."

However, a number of customers felt the blade needed sharpening before they could use it for weed removal. What's more, they noted that sharpening the blade made a noticeable difference in how easily this weed cutter from Bully Tools slices through vegetation up to roughly ¼-inch thick. To sharpen a flat blade on this or any other weeding tool, hold the blade to the sharpening stone at a 20 -to 30-degree angle. This 12-inch Sharpal Dual-Grit Diamond Sharpening Stone costs about $22 and should do the trick. Muddy Boots, who bought the tool on Amazon, also noted that because the blade isn't serrated, it's easier to sharpen than other tools. In their words, "For those that want a serrated blade, I disagree. They are MUCH harder to sharpen. This is a great tool as is IF you sharpen it."