A quick hands-on demo of the Niwaki Japanese hand hoe in my Midwest garden. It’s light, sharp, and slices through small weeds with almost no effort. I show how it skims under the soil to uproot and flip weeds, how it handles thicker stems, what happens with roots (some can re-sprout), and a small 2×3 ft loosen test on compacted soil. It’s not razor-knife sharp, but it glides through soil and makes quick maintenance passes super easy. Mine was Made in Japan and shipped to Nebraska for about $35.
If you want a simple, effective tool for fast touch-ups between beds, this is a great option. I’ll drop the product link below. I’m also working on cover cropping this winter—subscribe if you want to follow along!
Link to the Niwaki website: https://www.niwaki.com/weeding-hoe/?sku=P00327-2
Chapters:
00:00 Intro & why I like this tool
00:20 What it is (Niwaki hand hoe) + “Made in Japan”
00:45 Small weed slice & flip demo
01:30 Thicker weed test + what the roots do
02:20 Quick 2×3 ft loosen/till test
03:15 Price, weight/feel, one-hand use
04:00 Final thoughts + link
All right, guys. James here. You can see the tool here. I have another video about this tool. Uh, this is a little hand hoe. Um, it’s made in Japan. It is a Niwaka hand hoe. Um, and what I wanted to do, this video is going to be, it’s going to be a little bit longer than the other one. Uh, but my goal with this one is to really show like what we can do with it. Uh it it’s a simple tool and it’s not gonna get every weed out, but the the greatest thing about it is like if you just want to like we have this little leaf weed right here. You can go here and it just cuts through the soil so easily cuz it’s so sharp. And in reality, it’s not doing a lot because all it’s doing is we’ll show here. It goes underneath, completely uproots that, and you just flip it over. So, these these weeds here technically could uh r-root and I I have definitely seen that some. But this tool is sharp enough and it’s light enough that if you are just coming through the garden and you see little weeds, you just flip it over. Just go pull pull along here like that. scratch them off. We’ve got a little thicker one here. Just pulls it right off. Um the roots are technically still there, so it can definitely uh keep uh roots will definitely stay there and you can definitely have some uh resp sprouting of weeds. But it is such an easy tool to use. And I I mean there’s more tools that I need to get, but this is one that here in my really second year of gardening is one that has been beneficial to me. Uh obviously I need to get some bigger tools. Um ah what are they called? They are like a it’s like a turning rake I think is kind of what it is. Uh, I don’t think that’s the exact definition uh or name of it, but I would like to get one of those at some point. Um, so let’s see. Can we get this so that you guys can read this? There’s Cooper in the background. Let’s clear a little dirt off here. Hold on a second, guys. Clean this on my shoe quick. It’s hard doing this with just one hand. So, there’s an engraving here. It says made in Japan. This is This was shipped to me here in Nebraska from Japan for about 35 bucks. Um, I don’t know if you can see. Let’s see if I can get it focused there. The blade here. It is a really nice blade. It’s not sharp enough to like cut a piece of paper or something like that. Um, do one of the like sharpening tests that you use on like kitchen knives. But I mean, as we show here, Cooper, watch out. I’m pushing down with just barely any force, and it just pulls through the ground like that. Just that easily. You hit it. This is a little hard hard dirt here, but you hit it. And I mean that’s a two foot by 3 foot square and not really a square but a section of ground here that has been I mean relatively easily uh tilled up a little and really I don’t want to do a lot of tilling with uh how I plant. But to get some weeds and stuff out uh I did that. definitely need to work on getting some other tools and figuring out uh cover cropping. That is going one thing I’m going to be focusing on this winter is getting cover cropping going. Um but yeah, this tool the uh I’m calling it a hand ho. I don’t know if that’s exactly what they call it. Uh but from Noaka, a Japanese company. I will definitely I’ll leave a link to this uh in the description below. And if you guys are looking for a little a little hoe here that is a solid little tool, I would definitely go check it
2 Comments
This hoe has been a great addition! Does anyone else have suggestions for good gardening tools?
I like that and hadn't seen one of those before, use to have a garden but not in a few years. Been thinking about getting back into it, it's a skill we can't lose.