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If you garden, you in all likelihood have a hoe. You may consider yourself an adept in its use, as I did. That was before I learned the Seven Secrets of Hoeing. I was a young grasshopper, full of myself, knowing nothing.
The hoe, Grasshopper, is the most ancient of agricultural tools. Honor it, and study the Seven Secrets of Hoeing. The first secret is . . .
But before I share the First Secret of Hoeing, understand that I came by this knowledge from
a Buddhist monk whose father was a pilot in Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers in World War II. He crash-landed his Curtiss C-46 Commando while flying supplies to China over The Hump in Tibet, and fathered a child in Shangri-La before dying suddenly. Reared in the household of the Dalai Lama, the boy was told his father spoke of the Lincoln Highway as the True Path of Enlightenment in America. In old age this holy man came to this country and followed the Lincoln Highway to East Liverpool, Ohio, where his pilgrimage ended abruptly because the Old Chester Bridge over the Ohio River had been torn down.
Concluding that East Liverpool was a Seat of Enlightenment, he shared his knowledge with me, a young newspaper reporter, before dying suddenly while sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Jigger Room at the Travelers Hotel.
Having spent most of his life tending garden, he was a Hoe Monk, and had learned Hoe Lore passed down from Hoe Monks over the ages. He said much, but here I shall pass along only the distilled essence of his teaching, phrasing in simple words so that you may understand, Grasshopper.
The First Secret of Hoeing is . . . Use a Good Hoe.
If your hoe has a wooden handle like a dowel rod, it is a crap hoe. If it has a pointed or serrated blade, it is a crap hoe. If the steel of the blade is not thin, if the steel shank is not goosenecked, if the handle is not crafted from ash or hickory, it is a crap hoe. Buy a good hoe. Better yet, find one at an estate sale, from a time when they knew how to make a hoe and almost everyone knew how to use one.
The Second Secret of Hoeing is . . . Keep Your Hoe Sharp.
My father filed his hoes down until the blade was about an inch tall. Clamp the gooseneck shank firmly in a vise and with a sharp flat file cut an even beveled edge on the blade. In the garden, keep the file in your hip pocket to dress up the edge when needed. If you forget the file, a stone from the garden will do in a pinch.
The Third Secret of Hoeing is. . . .Cultivate before Hoeing.
If your garden is planted in rows of sufficient width (22 1/2 inches), till the soil to a fine consistency, then use your hoe to pull the loose soil between and around the stems of your garden plants. If you don't have a cultivator, borrow one from your neighbor. He must lend it to you. It's in the Magna Carta. (It mentions a mule. Same idea.)
The Fourth Secret of Hoeing is. . . Hill Around Plants.
When Khrushchev said, "We will bury you," he was saying that capitalism is a weed. Weeds, like your garden plants, need three things: soil, water and light. When weeds grow close to your plant, digging them out can be risky. Use your hoe to bury them in loose soil. It took Ronald Reagan to bury the Soviets, but under Putin the Russians have come back like the weeds they are.
The Fifth Secret of Hoeing is . . . Mulch.
Mulching, like burying, kills weeds by depriving them of light. It also holds in moisture. Ruth Stout taught us that you can mulch with almost anything. After cultivating and hoeing, I mulch with half-rotted hay and lay strips of junk carpet between rows. (My wife will not pick pole beans unless she's standing on carpet, but that is another story.)
The Sixth Secret of Hoeing is . . . Honor the Weed Enemy.
It is proper to respect and honor your enemy. Weeds are, after all, fellow living things here on Spaceship Earth. As you uproot, bury and hack them to pieces, you might say to them, as Chingachgook in "Last of the Mohicans" told an elk, "We are sorry to kill you, brother." However, when weeds fight back, you must focus your anger to defeat them. As Captain Ahab shouted at the white whale, "From hell's heart I stab at thee, for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee." Hoeing, even when you employ these secrets, is hard work; hate will give you strength.
The Seventh and last Secret of Hoeing is . . . Do Everything at the Right Time.
Don't hoe the corn until you can tell it from grass. Bury weeds when they are young. Hoe before a dry spell because weeds will re-root in a rain.
And, Grasshopper, borrow the cultivator from your neighbor while he's at work, but have a copy of the Magna Carta on hand should he catch you.