Weed tool

What's a good tool for hooking out weeds from a lawn.
I pull a few by hand but they snap at the base and come back a week later.

I don't like the giant fiskars one you stand on.

 

I use a daisy grubber. Rely on this tool a loooot. Tesco has them at £2

 

I must have a look for one of them. We don't have a Tesco with garden department though, maybe other places have them as well. We use weedkiller, but not conventionally in a sprayer. Mix up some Glyphosate (Roundup - only the Monsanto brand name of Roundup is about 3x the price of other peoples' Glyphosate!) Mix it, and include some washing up liquid, which is known as wetting agent in agriculture terms - I studied farming at Bicton College and got an HND, but that was 35 years ago now and I have forgotten much of it. Some of it stuck though. The washing up liquid breaks down the waxy layer that some leaves have, like ivy and allows the active ingredient to get absorbed, instead of just running off. You can get a weed wiper, which is like a mop of flat pieces of material. You can use a paintbrush for even more localised application and just paint the individual plants - you don't have to paint the entire plant either, because Glyphosate is transported to the root. It won't look like anything is happening for about a fortnight, then the leaves will go brown as the plant is killed from the root upwards.

 

For leaving as little a hole as possible, I often use a dandelion weeder fork for getting stubborn roots out, not just for dandelions.

Here's an image of what I mean:

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2lszou1&s=9#.VxZbLPkrL4Y

I Had one of those Fiskars things and it worked great on masive dandelions but for smaller ones it was a waste of time, so took it back. It should be called a Fiskars Giant Danelion Puller Only.