You need good tools to rid your lawn and garden of weeds mechanically. Tools should be sturdy enough to push through hard soil and to survive scrapes and bangs against rocks. In general, you use the tools to dig, pull, loosen and cut. Choose the highest quality tools that you can afford to buy to reduce the chance the tool will break while you are using them.
Sometimes weeding is a matter of loosening the soil enough so that the weed's roots are not able to resist the force of your pulling. Use a cultivator to scrape soil on the surface to expose the roots of shallow-rooted weeds. Grab and twist roots with the cultivator to pull them out of the ground.
Choose a garden fork when you want to break up the ground around the weeds. Drive the tines into the ground and twist the fork to loosen the soil. Continue to dig into the soil
A garden knife is slender tool you can use to access weeds growing in small spaces, in particular, in between bricks or pavers. Gardeners also use knives to cut through roots and stems.
There are several different types of hoes. The most common type of hoe has a flat blade set at a right angle from the handle. Use this common garden hoe to pull dirt and weeds toward you. Use the arrowhead blade of the Warren hoe to make furrows and slice out weeds. Vegetable gardeners use the Warren hoe frequently. An onion hoe is thinner than a standard hoe. The North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service notes that gardeners can fashion an onion hoe themselves by grinding a common hoe until the blade is thin. Use the onion hoe to reach beneath foliage to pull out weeds growing beneath the plants you want to keep.
A trowel looks almost like a mini-shovel. Manufacturers make trowels in various widths and with varying degrees of sharpness. You can use it to shovel dirt away from plant roots and then pull the weed out. Dig deep enough to get under the roots and lift the entire weed out of the ground.
A weeder is a long tool with a notch at the end. Use this tool to dig straight down to pull up weeds with long tap roots, particularly, dandelions. Cut through tough roots with the relatively sharp and sturdy notch. Use the long handle to twist roots and stems to yank them out.