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Tools and Gadgets
129 Plays2 years ago
On this episode of Hort Culture we'll talk about some of the tools and gadgets that make gardening easier, more fun, and more productive. Whether you're a hobbyist or a professional, you'll find something here that suits your needs and budget. From smart irrigation systems to compost tumblers, from pruning shears to plant sensors, we'll cover it all. So tune in and get ready to discover some amazing garden gadgets!
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction to Horticulture Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Horticulture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture.
Humor and Air Quality Challenges
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to an episode, or welcome to your first episode, possibly, of Hort Culture Podcast. We are all suffering through bad air quality right now. I feel like my voice is not the same. What about you guys? And we're not just talking about people farting in the room. We're talking about a more... It is more than just that. I was talking about people farting in the room. Yeah. Yes.
00:00:45
Speaker
All of us are sitting alone in each of our rooms. So I'm pretty sure you all are farting in your own room. You always need a pet nearby. You need a pet to blame things on. Okay. Just a handy, handy word of advice. That's that's wisdom. That is wisdom. Yeah. It's a good day. It's a pretty day. At least as we sit here now, what is it like?
00:01:05
Speaker
75, 80 degrees or something like that in the sunshine. It's like mid 80s. Yeah. Maybe a little rain would be good. And humidity is down today. And I always enjoy that here in Kentucky. Any day we can.
00:01:17
Speaker
Have a day with moderate heat and low humidity. Yeah, that's a, that's a pretty good day. Low, like below 70, which is like the mold warning. Then like, yeah, that's a good, good low humidity day. We're in the zone. We are in the zone. Exactly. When you're outside and you're just like, I'm pretty sure mold is growing on my skin right now. Like you don't want to be out there. If you move too slowly, we have all seen those trees down south. If you move too slowly.
00:01:43
Speaker
Things may grow on you when the humidity reaches that point.
00:01:49
Speaker
Yeah, that was me this past weekend. I, at some point I just kind of like sat down and just slowly just laid down on the ground. It was like, I'm done. I hope you were in the shade when you did that. We're cleaning out, cleaning up the barn and we got all the stall mats pulled out and those stall mats are like so heavy. Yeah. So we got them all put back in and got them in the right order and finally got them puzzle piece together. And I just, the last one, I just kind of like sat down and I just rolled backwards and I
00:02:18
Speaker
I just laid there.
Horticulture Gadgets: Ethical Considerations
00:02:20
Speaker
Just done for the day. Nice and still, yes. But anyways, our topic today is I think a fun one. It's kind of exciting. We talk a lot about growing on here and marketing, but we're going to talk about some hort gadgets today. So some of our favorites, some weird ones we've seen and may or may not have used, and we have to give this a little caveat
00:02:47
Speaker
Trade trigger warning whatever you want to call it at the beginning that as as UK employees we are not endorsing any certain brand but we will mention some brand names in some cases there's only one brand that makes an item in some cases there are lots of brands that make some sort of item.
00:03:06
Speaker
I think at least for me, it's just I will say the brand name that I have personally used. And we encourage you to go out and do your own research as to what will work best for you and buy it wherever you want to buy it. So we have to give that up front. And now that we've done that, somebody talk about a cool work ethic. So what am I supposed to do with all of these products and promo codes that I've received endorsements for that I was going to plug
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah. Brett is wondering where the cash is checks out of this, of this, uh, this program. There's no product I want to endorse. You know, we're going to mention product names in specific instances because we get so excited when we, I mean, after all, this is our favorite garden gadgets or maybe gadgets we're associated with or personally use. So it's going to be a fun round table to like in, in the era of disposability and.
00:04:05
Speaker
low-quality, high-volume sales companies and products that do the opposite of that. They sell you one thing that you're going to have for probably the rest of your life for the next several decades. I'm happy about that. I like that. Shouting that out sometimes, it feels like you're leading people in the right direction, but at the same time, we don't want to get too caught up in that. That's something I
00:04:31
Speaker
with the term, even the term gadgets, sometimes it has a little bit of association with maybe like cheap or disposable or gimmicky or whatever. And there are certain products.
00:04:47
Speaker
I mean, it could be a cultivator. It could be an app on your iPhone gadgets. I'm here for some As Seen TV. I know why do they put that right where, I know why in stores that is right where you check out because my eyes go straight to, yes, I want that car Bluetooth, wireless CarPlay adapter. I'm a millennial man. Do you remember the cool infomercials? Like I was about that. Like I would spend my allowance money on those infomercials on like
00:05:14
Speaker
I was just walking around spraying Flex Seal, no endorsement intended. I was just walking around spraying that stuff on random stuff to see if I could stop leaks. I was. What happened? It was this guy. We were talking about Kentucky heat and sweating. What would happen if you if you coated yourself in Flex Seal in this heat? You think that would be a bad idea or? I think it would be waterproof. I think it would be waterproof. It would hold it in. Yeah. Yeah, it would hold it in waterproof. Sweating is rude and professional environment, so that's good.
00:05:43
Speaker
Pores are basically a bunch of leaks all over your. Yeah. I sweat in all my professional environments. I want to make a sweat and I want to sweat while
Heirloom Tools and Their Stories
00:05:55
Speaker
I'm doing it. I like Brett's thought when he was leading us in here and it's interesting because it got me to thinking immediately when you mentioned like garden implements or things that you may have that may last through the generation. Do any of you guys have any garden tools
00:06:09
Speaker
That you either may have purchased used or may have been passed down real curious cuz I love old garden and You know like old farm and garden equipment just love it old old steel equipment So if you guys have anything like that, that's maybe more than one generation old I had a hatchet
00:06:28
Speaker
Oh, nice. Yeah. It's pretty old. It's pretty old. Is that something from the family or just something that you pick up? I think I bought it either. I bought it used either on eBay or somewhere similar. I have a lot of more like hand tools and woodworking tools and stuff like that that's older.
00:06:49
Speaker
But as far as garden tools, was there any cool garden tools in that place that you, in your all's barns that Alexis or the buildings or anything on your property? On our in our old barn? No, there's no cool like garden tools, I wouldn't say like there's
00:07:10
Speaker
Like, we've got an axe, which I guess could be a garden tool. I don't know. I don't think of it as a garden tool. Is it cool for really like tough tomato plants? I mean, it's a big old axe. I don't have any hand-me-down garden tools because my mom
00:07:34
Speaker
My parents gardened a little bit, like I'm sure my grandparents, you know, garden like a little bit, but all the old tools that I have are old woodworking tools like and masonry tools. So my grandfather was a Mason.
00:07:46
Speaker
And he passed down like some really cool like hand drills and stuff that he used for stonework. But yeah, I don't have any old garden tools. I have tools that I know are going to have for a long period of time. Does that count? That maybe I will then hand down? No, it doesn't count. It should count. End of conversation. Have I already referenced the like, it's not really a joke. It's more like, I don't even know what you would call it. It's like a,
00:08:13
Speaker
somewhat it's not funny the idea of like this is george washington's axe the handles have been replaced three times in the heads been replaced once or something like that. This idea of like a tool with rep with like replaceable parts and but yet there's still some sort of you know.
00:08:29
Speaker
claim that this belonged to some famous person, even though they're both thesiest kind of thing, like it's all been replaced. It's a crude thing. Exactly. Like at what point is it a completely different item? Yeah, like I all the skin that's on my body.
00:08:44
Speaker
is different from the skin that when I was a baby. You're a brand new person. Yeah. I would call that a joke. It's just a bad one, but that made me good. Well, if you say I've got this axe, it used to be George Washington's, and you say those things like, oh, the handle's been replaced twice, and the head's been replaced once. As long as you're not taking it seriously, it's a joke then.
00:09:11
Speaker
It sounds like a think piece, Josh. I don't know if you've ever heard of a think piece before. Vox or somebody should just hire me to write things like this. The Ellie take. To be provocative. The joke explainer. If anybody's ever heard that before, back me up because it's like I don't even know. I can't even remember where. I don't know. I'll just be quiet now.
Versatile Gardening Tools
00:09:38
Speaker
If you like jokes explained to you, then come, I said, if you like jokes explained to you, this is the podcast for you. Jokes are always better when somebody has to explain. You tear them open and squeeze every bit of funny out of them.
00:09:53
Speaker
Speaking of tearing things open. You were talking about heirloom quality stuff that you yourself have bought or that you planned out. Yeah, so I think a lot of people probably know about this, but it's going to be like a 50-50. The Hori Hori knife, also known as the soil knife. And so, you know, I bought myself a treated mil-soaf. I've had a couple over the years, all still in
00:10:18
Speaker
you know, still usable, but what they had plastic handles. So a soil knife is exactly what it sounds like. It's like a large knife that's slightly dull at the tip. It usually has a serrated edge on it and also has like measurements, like inches. It's about six inches long. So you can measure, oh, if my seed needs to go down two inches, I can use that on there. And it's kind of... It's kind of like a cross between a knife and a trowel, like a hand trowel, as far as if you're trying to imagine it. Yeah.
00:10:47
Speaker
It's very multi-use and I used to be sort of against them until I've really figured out how they're supposed to be used, but it's great for weeding. You can use it to plant. You can use it for, I mean, I have used it to cut through things because we've got that serrated edge, but I just recently treated myself to a nice wood handled one that where the, the knife, I don't know if it's called, what if it would be called like the shank.
00:11:12
Speaker
of the knife go run through the handle and you know so it's the tang thank you the tang of the knife i knew there was some bread sword collection yeah like the like the orange drink a little mini sword the orange drink of cosmonauts orangutans i was thinking yes i was thinking orange drink bread thank you
00:11:33
Speaker
Those are great. Those are the more you use those. I don't know. I don't know how long those knives have been around. Those implements have been around, but we're Japanese. So, I mean, they've no families that they throw on the third generation now of the same knife and they're slick down where they're used so much and they're beautiful. They're really.
00:11:50
Speaker
I'm a big fan. If you are looking for a hand tool, whether you're a home gardener, commercial, you know, whatever, I would strongly recommend getting a soil knife. And they're not that expensive. And they're really good at popping out dandelions. I mean, they're great for weeding. I love those things for, I just, you know, I'm kind of like with dandelions the way Alexis is with certain types of insects in her garden.
00:12:10
Speaker
is that I use one very similar to that. It's like that, but it's kind of got a V on the tip, so it actually just severs the root subsurface, and I love it. So things aren't fine and dandy when it comes to you and dandy lines, eh? No, they are not. There are no dandy lines at this zoo. Dang. And you see, the reason that joke works is because he's a dandy. It's not a joke. It's more of a comment. It's more of a slider. It's more of a slider.
00:12:37
Speaker
But anyways, yes, Hori Hori, H-O-R-I, H-O-R-I, they're usually less than $30 for, I mean, you can get a really high quality one for, you know, $30 or so from just about anywhere these days. So highly recommend. So that's my first one who wants to go next.
00:12:53
Speaker
Well, one that is near and dear to my heart, and I've seen commercial gardeners use these, commercial producers, smaller commercial producers, and certainly a lot of home gardeners. But one of the things I started using years and years ago were these direct garden seeders that you can get. There's a lot of different brands, but basically it's an implement.
00:13:14
Speaker
in well tilled and prepared soil you just basically if you're doing a direct seeded crop like snap beans for instance you just fill up a little hopper a little container and just push this thing and hopefully a straight line through your garden and it drops the seeds at the proper interval based on whatever plate it's plate base there's different plates for different seed sizes that spaces the seeds out and it accepts certain sizes of seeds
00:13:40
Speaker
But these direct garden seeders, and you can do something like green beans in just a tenth of the time.
00:13:47
Speaker
as opposed to the old fashioned way of laying off a row, you know, creating a furrow in a row and then going along, dropping your seeds, coming back and then covering that. You can do that all in one operation. And as fast as you can walk, you can seed. And those things are absolutely incredible. And you usually get those things with five to seven seed plates, you know, everything from carrots all the way up to like peas. And you have to pay attention. The plates are usually labeled. And if they don't come with all of the plates that you need,
00:14:17
Speaker
There's usually, you can add those on later if you misplace your seed plates. You can order those for most companies, but you have to go with the same plate that
00:14:28
Speaker
matches the brand that you purchase. There's a lot of different brands. They range from about $150 up to $200. If you want to get really fancy, they have those direct cedars. Now these are more for small commercial producers, but they have fertilizer hoppers attached to those. So it's side dresses and or does a side application of fertilizer, whatever you need in that instance and drops the seeds at the same time. So those get fancier. They cost a little more. They're about $350.
00:14:56
Speaker
But just an incredible sort of semi-automatic piece of equipment that takes an hour job and makes it more like a 10 minute job and I've used those a lot and I've just really grown to like those. The only limitation I've seen from those is that you cannot have really cloudy soil. You have to have your soil fairly worked up fine.
00:15:17
Speaker
And then they work great. The only other way that you'll fail with those pieces of equipment is if you go a little bit too deep, there's a depth setting on those things and you have to pay really close attention to that because I don't know about you guys, but when I'm dealing with fresh tilled soil, I'm pretty excited and it's easy to go too deep into fresh tilled soil, depending on what type of soil you have. So you have to watch your depth, but those things are awesome. Have you guys ever used those? There's a lot of brands, like I said, but little direct garden seeders, they're amazing.
00:15:46
Speaker
Yeah, I have used those and it's like you say, you know, if you, it's just about walking speed that you can get it done. And it's real nice. I mean, the, the one that I used, it's, it's light too. It's the kind of thing that you can easily lift and put in the back of, you know, some kind of car or something like that. They weigh maybe three to five pounds. Ground driven. So they're not, there's no motor. There's no electricity, no gas, no anything. Exactly. There's a wheel on the ground that you're pushing and it's. Yes.
00:16:13
Speaker
which is great because there's less parts and less expensive parts to break, but there is a learning curve of the skill of using one effectively and at the right speed and having your soil prepped and all that kind of stuff. There's a learning curve. Yeah. I'll be the naughty boy here and just say a couple of the brands that people tend to have are, Earthway was the first one that I ever used. That's one of the original brands. Another brand. I'm not sure if they're still around or not.
00:16:43
Speaker
They are. And I, both of those, it's all about calibration and learning to use it. I'm sure there's a million other brands now, but if you're starting your research, you could start there and just kind of see and read what people say that this is way better. This, you know, those were good back then. These, this new one's better or whatever people might say now, but it's a very cool, yeah, very cool, elegant system. And like you said, going from hands and knees
00:17:05
Speaker
yes dropping carrot seeds yeah it's a game changer for home gardens unless you just like to punish yourself it'll it'll reduce your time greatly for those direct city crops we did it we did quarter acre patches for those uh when i lived in the hills uh the hilly part of kentucky where it wasn't really conducive to take large tractors or whatever into certain areas
00:17:28
Speaker
You know, we would see pretty big areas with those things because there's larger hoppers you can get on some of the models that hold a lot of seed. And you can do bigger areas with those are great. And like you say, the plate system, it's super versatile. I mean, I think the largest cultivated area that I did where all we used for seeding
00:17:48
Speaker
for mixed vegetables was an earth way on three acres. That's awesome. And you can do three acres actually pretty quick with one of those. It's a lot easier to seed three acres with an earth way than it is to like do everything else associated with that. Get yourself in trouble. Yes. And I've noticed there's dedicated direct seeders now. I got to looking
00:18:09
Speaker
There's some, they're smaller than the cedars that we're talking about, but they're still direct cedars, but they're specifically for tiny seeded crops. And they're really dedicated and they have a completely different drop system where they can drop like a, you know, mustard seed precisely.
00:18:26
Speaker
And those are even cheaper but they're dedicated to a smaller range of garden crops, the smaller seeded crops, and they have a different drop mechanism because you get these tiny seeded crops and they're really really hard to precisely drop those seeds and what in the device we're talking about.
00:18:41
Speaker
in some cases. So you have even more of a precision seeder that are more dedicated to the tiny crops. And they're the same price, 150 or less, but they do fewer crops.
Tool Maintenance and Innovations
00:18:54
Speaker
So if you've not done so, check into those direct seeders we're talking about because they're the real time savers and they've got little gizmos that a lot of them I've noticed come with now. They'll mark the next row for you. So the only row you have to get straight
00:19:09
Speaker
if you're of a mine that you like straight rows in your garden, you have a little marker that kind of drags along the soil and it'll space however wide you want your rows spaced and it'll mark the next row for you even. So yeah, they're great gadgets. They're really good. And they last a long, long, long time with proper care because a lot of the newer ones I've noticed are not made out of all metal. They're made out of a lot of aluminum and poly materials that are weatherproof and they don't wear out easily. And I know, I think it was an Earthway Cedar that
00:19:38
Speaker
We had multiple brands, but the Earthway Cedar was 20 some years old. However long the Earthway has been making them. We had the same one with the same rubber belt drive on it that lasted all those years. We'd clean it at the end of the season and hang it up in the barn and it'd be there waiting on us next year. Nice. Yeah. What else?
00:19:58
Speaker
I was thinking one of the ones, one of the tools that kind of blew my mind when I learned about it, because I, and this has to do with kind of pruning or taking care of larger limb stuff, but pruning saw, as opposed to like, you know, before I learned about a pruning saw, it was just where are the loppers? And do you have a big enough set? And if you don't,
00:20:19
Speaker
Well, you just attack that thing and you mangle your tree best you can. But yeah, pruning saws and how aggressively they cut really kind of remove any limitations and they make clean cuts and they're easy to use.
00:20:35
Speaker
You know, like it's one of those ones where you let the tool do the work and it's all on the pull and you can just, you know, not, not crush yourself trying to get rid of a limb that can be pretty sizable with a pruning saw. Those things are cool. You can get the, the pull, the pushes or the push pull versions, depending on the aggression that you want. But those are the technology there. The blade technology has been gotten so good. And those things are so short. What I saw the other day is as a whatever, not an alternate for, but
00:21:07
Speaker
This dude, he had a mini chainsaw. Oh my gosh, those things are dope. Like a foot long kind of thing. Oh no, no, no, like the size of a cell phone. And he's like holding it on his hand. Super safe. It's electric, so it doesn't go very fast.
00:21:24
Speaker
It's actually pretty cool because I, and I've used, if I'm, if I'm not doing fine pruning, I'll use a pruning, they sell pruning specific blades for reciprocating saws. And I have like a sawzall and I have a printing blade for that and I have a cordless one. And that's extremely, it's a way to make extremely quick work, especially if you're pruning some stuff back and then you're going to go back for finishing cuts or whatever.
00:21:50
Speaker
But yeah, the little mini chainsaw, I don't know that I have a real application to have one, but I kind of really want one. Cause it's like, I don't know. It's like a little thing. You've seen them before. My friend Sarah.
00:22:05
Speaker
No, it doesn't have a claw. My friend Sarah has one. She's a florist and she, so she uses a lot of like woody materials and she'll like go and like do some harvesting and stuff. But, but you know, she gets some woodier materials in that's, you know, the size of a quarter or bigger. Uh, she'll use that and she loves it. And it was manufactured like a mainstream manufacturer. It wasn't something obscure. Uh, this guy's in Britain. Uh, so, you know, I just implicitly trust him because of the accent.
00:22:38
Speaker
You've touched on something here, Brett, and I didn't think about it, but the battery tech and horticulture has revolutionized. Well, not just in horticulture, just across the boards everywhere.
00:22:48
Speaker
But just as much in Hort as any other area. But battery technology. I was one of those I grew up with like timber chainsaws. I had a lot of uncles that cut a lot of timber. And I was like, oh, when I first started seeing battery chainsaws. And now that's the only chainsaw I have because I don't have a reason I live in the suburbs. But I do cut a little bit of wood when I go back.
00:23:10
Speaker
home to the eastern part of the state. And now the only chainsaw has like an 18 inch battery. So it's an 80 volt, six amp hour battery, a big battery, but I've become a real believer. I don't have a gasoline motor at home. Now my weed eater blower, you know,
00:23:26
Speaker
uh, lawnmower, everything I've converted to battery. And I would not have thought that three years ago. Yeah. But that's some technology you mentioned that, and it just hit me. I'm like, wow, I just take that for granted anymore. It's not the perfect application for everyone, obviously, but battery technology, my goodness in horticulture, it's just, and I'm starting to see in our neighborhood, there's some commercial mowers that go back and forth. And there's a two or three crews that have zero turn battery mowers now.
00:23:53
Speaker
Oh wow. The big Z turns. It's just, it's amazing. Alexis, what are you running into in the world of batteries? As far as that goes, are you guys using any battery equipment much or? Um, I'm no, not our chainsaws gas. Dinosaur juice. Yeah.
00:24:13
Speaker
No, I, we don't, I want- You guys are probably, yeah, it's batteries that have a specific application set. My, like, my world is either like by hand and like simple improvisation, like the cedar or it's larger gas. You're kind of on both ends. There's nothing in between for us. Yeah.
00:24:34
Speaker
But I know I've seen those and maybe one of you were going to bring it up. It's actually not on my list, but it reminded me of it was the lettuce harvesters that you connect to a drill and it has little paddles or whatever that harvests into a bin. It's crazy. Those are really cool that you can just walk down the row and harvest that leaf lettuce from that, which is a drill attachment. I thought that was really cool.
00:25:02
Speaker
Has anybody used one of those? I haven't seen those, no. I've seen a version of that, but not like on the field harvest side. This was something on the wash side. This was something from the OGOG social media days where you'd see like videos of those happening. And I remember they kind of like came onto the scene because it wasn't like some kid invented it or something. I don't remember. Yeah, I don't know. Because they kind of came onto the scene when I was still working at the farm.
00:25:29
Speaker
and people would kind of be, yeah. If you can keep the weeds down and you can hit your lettuce at the right time, I think it's like an incredible opportunity to make it happen. Does it just knock the leaf lettuce off the stem? Is that how it works? No, it's got like a blade that you hook the drill up and it turns a gear, which makes this blade. It's almost like a chainsaw kind of or like a
00:25:55
Speaker
Now it might be like back and forth, like articulating as opposed to circular, but it's on a set of wheels. And as you push it, it's like cutting it off at the... There's a couple different styles of it too. So it's commercially available. Is this something people can look up? What are the keywords if I were looking for that? What would be the keywords if I were just doing a search? Leaf lettuce harvester or salad mix harvester.
00:26:24
Speaker
Yeah, I'm gonna have to do that because I have not specifically paid any attention to that. That would be, and the reciprocating portion would make perfect sense in that application because that doesn't create a lot of sling, which you would not want on leaf lettuce, like a grinding motion. That'd be the last thing you would want on leaf lettuce so that some kind of reciprocating cut would make sense. So yeah. So there's at least one available on Johnny's.
00:26:47
Speaker
I was just looking. That's exactly what I'm looking at. I'm pretty sure that's where like I because I think that it was like a it was a, you know, the old story of the American inventor. And I think it was I think it was a kid who came up with the idea. And then there was just this matter of like scaling it and bringing it to like a level that it would be could be. More, more broadly produced and. Yeah, it's kind of like a
00:27:15
Speaker
I think it's almost kind of like a hedge trimmer, you know, where it's like the back and forth. Like a hedge trimmer on a rolling platform or something. Yeah, sort of along those lines. You know, I think back to the tobacco industry when everything was on float beds, I don't know if you guys worked with tobacco transplant producers, any
00:27:31
Speaker
But in the past 15, 20 years ago, uh, some guy came up with the ingenious plan of trimming the tops of tobacco transplants, which was sort of a necessary thing for, you know, a nice even product is they just put a lawnmower on rails and just pushed it back and forth in the greenhouse and.
00:27:48
Speaker
That's how that was invented. Yeah, it became a whole thing and everybody started doing that method and it was efficient and fast and then there was electric mowers and plug-in mowers at the time more so than battery because battery tech wasn't as good back a few years ago. But yeah, that's how that was invented, kind of a similar concept. There was a need and so somebody got creative.
00:28:14
Speaker
And I think market gardeners are the master of that. Uh, every time I visit a farm of moderate size that's involved in horticulture operations, I am looking around constantly and I'm always amazed at the ingenuity of people solving problems with, you know, all these different concepts and these different gadgets. It's so cool. I mean, just looking around at people's barns, pretty cool stuff. Brett, what cool gadget do you have to show and tell today?
00:28:45
Speaker
Well, I'm kind of boring, so I don't tend toward a lot of gadgets per se.
Quality Tools and Maintenance
00:28:52
Speaker
I think, you know, for me, the tools or the, I guess you could call them gadgets, the tools that I probably wouldn't want to garden without are a good pair of pruners. I do have a pair of loppers.
00:29:15
Speaker
decent lightweight rake. Like the flat kind of lawn rake? Yes. Like a flat. I'm very particular about my lawn rakes. Yeah, very particular. And I think one thing that I... Josh, you and I have talked about this before, but an aspect of...
00:29:37
Speaker
An aspect of this tool stuff or this gadget stuff is learning how to, if you're going to invest in something good, learning how to maintain and or keep a thing operating at its highest level. And so you've never sharpened a shovel before. Yeah, right. Try it. Right.
00:29:55
Speaker
Set yourself free yeah so another gadget that i use i think i mean maybe i use more than anything as a file i use a file all the time to try to keep stuff oh yeah sharp and you know the older i get the more i appreciate it and the more time i'm happy to spend in the shade i know you guys use that have you guys used tungsten sharpeners just a sharpening steel yeah it's a piece of carbide or tungsten
00:30:18
Speaker
And that is one of my favorite sharpeners. I didn't start using that till later on in life with bypass printers. Then I figured out that it's amazing for shovels and other stuff. You know, a good file, a good tungsten sharpener, you know, is amazing. Those two items. Yeah, that's a good point. I've recently been in, so I put in some rain or have put in some rain barrels and rain collection components. And that has some gadgets that go along with it. But two things that I've, a couple of things that I've gotten,
00:30:48
Speaker
some electric pumps that I use to move pressurized water out of the barrels. I use an outlet remote, a thing that remotely turns off the power from an outlet so that I can turn my water off and on from a little remote while I'm not watering.
00:31:06
Speaker
That's a little setup that I've actually recently engaged in, in getting involved in. That's a gadget, some gadgets that I've been buying. Is that an app on your phone that controls that or like a remote control?
00:31:21
Speaker
Okay. Gotcha. Like line of sight kind of. Like they sell them. Yes. Well, yeah. I accidentally, I had it in my pocket and I laid down on the couch of the bed and it turned it on and Annie came in and was like, there's water going everywhere out here. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I don't even know my own power. I just thought about the turning on and it happened.
00:31:54
Speaker
a home garden irrigation system. You know, you just talked about water delivery, but you want to talk about an area where the technology has gotten good and gotten cheap. We've always, we've had it for years and years in commercial horticulture, but homeowners now have just, they have available to them anything that they want in the form of emitters, transmission lines, and it's all plug and play. It's super simple. And if you combine a basic home irrigation system that's plug and play, you know, it's basically pick your layout.
00:32:14
Speaker
It's amazing if you go online and just search,
00:32:23
Speaker
How much footage you need, type of emitters, and all this is kind of very straightforward, lots of pictures. If you combine that system like that in conjunction with like a timer, I mean, you've got a fully automated home irrigation system. You no longer have to worry about going on vacation. Timers have gotten good. The valves have gotten good. I mean, 15, 20 bucks, you can get an amazing, simple timer that will water on a schedule.
00:32:45
Speaker
You hook that to your drip irrigation system for home and it's incredible. The technology is so good and you know, it's just evolved over time. There's lots of different types of systems, but it's just common to pick out $100 system that does a lot of square footage and has like five different types of emitters in there. Drip emitters, projection style kind of emitters that kind of throw water up in the air if you need that to cover a larger area like lettuce or something. But yeah, those systems have gotten so good and your comment made me think about that, Brett. Yeah.
00:33:16
Speaker
I've recommended that a lot to people over the last few years is this is home irrigation systems just blow my mind how efficient how good they are. Yeah, that was one that I had written down was like those kind of irrigation setups, specifically kind of like timers, hose timers, that kind of thing because you can connect it to
00:33:32
Speaker
whatever you're kind of working with. Maybe you're just working with like soaker hoses or whatever, but maybe you have a drip irrigation system set up. Maybe you like Ray have, you know, the top of the line emitter is set up to like perfectly douse a certain area. But yeah, there's a lot of kind of develop your own for whatever your system is and customize it and just take some pressure off yourself for, you know, getting some of these things done. Like you can just set it and forget it and walk away.
00:34:00
Speaker
Check on it every now and again.
Gardening Wearables for Protection
00:34:03
Speaker
Do you all have any go-to wearable accessories for either efficiency or comfort or safety or any of those things? If you spend a lot of time outside, maybe you still didn't have this realization, but a large hat has
00:34:26
Speaker
multiple different positive outcomes. One is that it keeps the sun off of you, but it also has this really strange cooling effect. And I didn't realize that until I worked outside more. So that's one. And recently, you know, we are the well-documented bald boys of the podcast. And one of the things that the non-bald among us don't necessarily realize is that the hair that is on your head, that is on your blessed heads,
00:34:58
Speaker
actually soaks up a lot of moisture and when you are you know if Alexis's hair is like the rainforest
00:35:09
Speaker
And my head is like a parking lot. And what happens when moisture hits a parking lot is it runs right off. And so an element that I have more and more tried to take advantage of are the buffondas, the stretchy scarves. Sometimes they're called gaiters or whatever. Fishermen can wear them. Some of them have a UPF factor.
00:35:32
Speaker
But for just kind of keeping some sun off my head and keeping the moisture somewhat in place so that when a cool breeze comes across, it feels good. Do you all have any other wearable? I know like a lot of the flower people have seen ads where they wear like the sleeve things and they wear like. Yeah, I was going to bring that up. I've got those. I knew you did.
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Do you have like an apron or like a tool belt or like what's your vibe all night? I have a tool belt. What kind of sleeve things are we talking about here? Yeah, what is it? Alan Iverson, never heard of him? He's got sleeves. He's got sleeves.
00:36:08
Speaker
SPF sleeves that are like literally they go up to like arm warmers. Yeah. Like a, like an arm warmer. Uh, and they go down to like the knuckles and they have little thumb holes in them, uh, where, you know, you can essentially get coverage.
00:36:24
Speaker
from, why I like them, well, not only because I'm pale, but I'm usually in long sleeves anyways. Like by this, by this time I have enough long sleeves in my repertoire of outdoor clothing that I don't necessarily use them for that. But when I do have short sleeves on, um, I will use, if it's even in the evening or early, early morning, I'll use them for skin protection from, um, just the plants themselves.
00:36:51
Speaker
So a lot of cut flowers or like if you've ever harvested squash or zucchini or a zinnia is a good example of this or even like if you're in brambles and stuff, okra, yeah, right. There's just fine hairs that will cause irritation on, you know, on your skin. And so these sleeves just kind of act as a barrier, but they also have sun protection in them, help keep you cool, stuff like that. I really like that.
00:37:15
Speaker
They make you look jacked. You can get skulls on them. They make them now where you can get like a matching hat. So like, like one of those. What about your tool belt? What about your tool belt? I have a really, really nice leather. Imagine Batman, except floral. It's, it's more, I think of it more of a holster.
00:37:40
Speaker
Okay, nice, nice. Couple of six shooters. Legit, like I pull out my pruners like I would with the hand. Horry hard enough and sling it. So, I'll tell you my set up. Let me, let me, let me down for you. Yeah, run me through it.
00:37:54
Speaker
So I used to wear a front little half apron where it was across the front, but when I was bending over or planting, it would get in the way. And so I switched to only having essentially what's more like holster. So I have like a large.
00:38:11
Speaker
And because it's leather, it's kind of like molded around like my hips at this point. But on one side, so I have my snips, I have my pruners, and then it has a bigger pocket where I keep my floral knife, my pen or pencil.
00:38:27
Speaker
And then usually like I can stuff my gloves down in there and then I also have on the belt itself has like a little thing that holster for my soil knife is now on there and then on the other side I have another little pouch other hip that holds all my rubber bands for bunching and so.
00:38:46
Speaker
It's a lot I feel like I kind of feel like my dad like my dad was police officer so he always has, you know, complain about his gun belt and like here I am like loading up this baby equipment off the very back so that like I have a lot more freedom of movement that way.
00:39:04
Speaker
And I wear it every single day. Even if you're not gardening. I mean, listen, I get more compliments on how cool I look in that thing than anything else. I do not doubt it at all. I look dope, man. But yeah, and then I have my sleeves on.
00:39:20
Speaker
That's cool. All the accessories. I mean, this has got some real Mad Max vibes. I like the more that the more effective that you are with your setup and the more comfortable that you are, the more time you're going to be able to spend out there. And yeah, absolutely. Walk back and forth. Everything that I need is right there at my fingertips, no matter if I'm like sudden like I have like ADHD when I'm in the field and I like see a weed and suddenly I'm like, I'm going to weed this whole row and I'm supposed to be picking. So I have all of that, you know, pretty much right there at my fingertips, which is.
00:39:50
Speaker
Most of the time a good thing but what i wanted to bring up one gadget that i get the most questions about and i said most questions of when i get my post a video about it or picture something.
Ergonomic Innovations in Tools
00:40:01
Speaker
Every single time i get someone like commenting what is that tell me more about it. And i think if you just were to google like stand and plant you would something would pop up.
00:40:14
Speaker
But I think there's a patent on this specific one, so I feel comfortable saying the name of it. It's Swedish, and it's called a pot-a-pookie planter. And so the spelling on that, for those of you who just went, what? Is P-O-T-T-I.
00:40:32
Speaker
p-u-t-k-i. So it's a Swedish planter and the difference between, that I have found between a pot-a-pookie planter and a normal stand-in plant. So those people who maybe have done tobacco in the past, a stand-in plant used to be used for that.
00:40:49
Speaker
often before kind of those wheel setters were something that... We did tomatoes out of those that were 80 years old. Yeah. So the difference that I have found between them is that it is one handed. So I can do everything with like one hand and my foot instead of having two levers up at the top, I have a lever for my foot and a thumb lever.
00:41:11
Speaker
at the top where my hand goes and so i can have one hand reaching in and grabbing stuff and i can do everything by myself so essentially it's exactly what it sounds like it's it's you're standing up and you're dropping plugs down through a little tube.
00:41:27
Speaker
When you're using these levers to open up the little bottom, after you push it down into the soil, then you drop your plug, the plug is in there, and then you pull that up and your finger will close it again so that you can stick it down into the soil. Are you pushing it in with your hands or with your foot?
00:41:46
Speaker
or both. You could either depending on your soil. So there is a little footstep where like I can push it down in there with my foot and then there's a release. Yeah. If you look it up, you, yeah, that thing looks cool.
00:41:58
Speaker
It is cool. So they use, and there's different sizes of them. So the, the main use, I think why it was created was for reforesting efforts. So they were using them to put in saplings, um, all over, you know, uh, places where things have been clear cut. And then it kind of slowly developed and, um, you know, people were buying them and converting them and using putting in smaller tubes so that they could put in smaller plugs. Well, now they've got all different sizes in there and they have convergent kits as well. So if you.
00:42:29
Speaker
If you use a whole bunch of different sizes in the garden, they're great. And my caveat is always the same with kind of those Earthway cedars, Jang cedars, whatever, you've got to have nice loose soil. And so you want that anyways for your plants. I mean, that's the goal always, but I would say the sandier or loamier your soil is, the easier it will be.
00:42:53
Speaker
to, that you won't have to go back and like make sure everybody's tucked in really well. I have to do that because I have a heavier clay soil. So I get the plug in there fine, but the soil doesn't always come back and close around the plug as well, just because I'm in Kentucky and we have clay here. So, but it is definitely like I've timed it and it definitely speeds up even with me going back through.
00:43:14
Speaker
And it saves my back. And so even if it were just as, if it were just as slow, but I'm spending less time bending over and planting those plugs and it's worth it to me because I'm, I'm sustaining myself for the future, right? Like by not killing my back and my knees.
00:43:30
Speaker
That is a huge, huge consideration and one that I think many a horticulture professional does not take into consideration until they are forced to take it into consideration by being laid up or whatever. Absolutely. I think that that ergonomic component, because I think one of the things with gadgets, my hesitance with gadgets is that sometimes they are
00:43:58
Speaker
creating a problem that they're solving and it's like not even doing the product. But I can tell you a sore back after a day of transplanting by hand is a real problem that a lot of people face. And so that's a really cool, back, I don't know, 10 plus years ago, Aaron's Dancom and I did a, I guess a variation on that little callback to the Hori Hori knife. We put a Hori Hori knife on the end of a piece of PVC and zip tied it.
00:44:28
Speaker
And I would go and kind of create a little hole and he would come and drop the plug and vice versa. It's kind of a similar, uh, which he didn't have to bend over to dig the hole was the right, right. Yeah. We didn't have a tube. That's what we were missing.
00:44:45
Speaker
Yeah. I just figured, you know, even if it takes me the same amount of time, it's definitely not slower, but if it takes me the same amount of time, that's fine. If that means that it's going to save, save me. And I, like I said, I think, and it's, I'm much faster when I get start getting through it and I don't use it for everything. Sometimes there's just certain plugs. It's just, I would rather do by hand. Some pookie, some pookie's need to be potted a different way. Some pookie's need to be potted, but it's a cool thing. I was going to log and it runs about.
00:45:13
Speaker
It runs about $350. So it's not, it's definitely not cheap, but they're very simple parts. And I think most, all of it, it'll just be like, you maybe have to replace a spring every once in a while. It looks sturdy. It looks like it's mostly it's very sturdy. I have, yeah, it's, it's a, you know, there's not really much to replace on it, but what you do, what you would replace, you could find at the hardware store. Like it's not hard.
00:45:42
Speaker
from what I can tell. It's worth the investment if you can. It must have used an ancient version of that, Alexis. It was clunky, but it was for tomatoes and tobacco. Yeah, they have them still. Do they still have those? I was wondering. I've not seen one of those in forever. The difference is all the other ones I've seen that are not this brand you need, it's two people because it takes two hands to work the planner and one person to drop the... That's why I went with this one because it was something I could do all by myself.
00:46:10
Speaker
The one I used was a one handed thing and it was weird. I guess people were a lot stronger back in the day. It had a small water container with a little pinky valve that you could pop some water in there when you drop the plant too, which seemed like an odd concept to me now, but it had a water jacket around it and it was tinned metal. It was not super heavy duty, but you had to have your soil just really loose for that thing to work because it had a pretty large opening.
00:46:38
Speaker
What you're talking about is a much sleeker and much more user friendly. So nice device. So big fan. Well, there's probably, we go on and on about this kind
Future of Gardening Gadgets
00:46:50
Speaker
of stuff. Oh yeah. Is there any burning last minute? I just want to say knee pads are awesome. Get knee pads, but yeah, we all know what those are. And if you're going to buy new pruners, uh, uh, check into the three bar.
00:47:05
Speaker
force multiplier pruners. I recommend those a lot. You know, we mentioned, you know, sore backs, well, sore hands and those that may have mobility issues or strength issues. Pruners, the technology has gotten good there too. Now there's the ones that will multiply your force.
00:47:21
Speaker
So kind of look for those. I want to fit your hands. Women, I'm talking to you. A lot of printers on the market are made for large men's hands. They do now make one for women's hands and get those because they will, you will thank me.
00:47:38
Speaker
And like a lot of the good brands will have a mention of the handle size and whether they fit for smaller hands or bigger hands. Yeah, I think, I mean, one of the things that's coming out of this and maybe this is telling of our age or transition time in life or whatever, but that like doing horticulture, if you are hurting or like desperately uncomfortable,
00:48:02
Speaker
then there might be something that you might want to look into to modify the activity or get some sort of supplementary gadget. There's like a lot, I used to have a lot of pride about things where it was like, I'll just push through or I'll just, you know, whatever, just be tougher or something. And I don't know where I've seen that in a lot of people. I don't know where that what that's about.
00:48:21
Speaker
if you are efficient for one year and then you can't do it anymore, that's not efficient. And so just thinking about just, you know, this is something that for all different age groups, all different activity levels. So there's, if you can find some gadgets that make you able to get out in the garden or, you know, work with trees or whatever. Yeah. Don't be afraid to do that. I like it. That can be a helpful way.
00:48:47
Speaker
So many good gadgets. I mean, and these are not gimmicky gadgets that we've talked about today. I think for us, particularly us, I mean, obviously we find them very useful. I think a future episode that could be fun would be to find some of the like more crazy out there gimmicky gadgets and ones that may have like react to them, you know.
00:49:06
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, please. Can we need to do that when we do a YouTube? We need to start the YouTube for that so that people can see the gadget. We will hold up. We can do our thumbnail faces. Japanese beetle trap. Number one garden. Awesome. No, it's not. Yeah. Yeah. That would be good. Who's in charge of doing that next? Somebody needs to bring a random wildcard gadget. If you don't have some fun, fun, wild gadgets or ones that you just believe in straight up, let us know.
00:49:33
Speaker
Either way. Yeah. And you can let us know. You can shoot us an email at hortculturepodcast at l.uky.edu. That will be in the show notes. You can also follow us on Instagram at hortculturepod. And you can let us know about a cool gadget or if you want to know how
00:49:54
Speaker
Something you're having issues with in the garden and you wanna know if we know of anything we've we've all had a lot of different experiences in this world and so we can hopefully help you so that you can be gardening more or farming more and for a longer period of time.
00:50:10
Speaker
But I think that's about it. We're going to wrap this up. So we hope that as we grow this podcast you will grow with us and join us next week. We're going to finish out our cut flowers celebration for the state of Kentucky. So thank you all for being with us today.