The knife stick. It's a knife on a stick. 

 

I have a lot of banana trees but as anyone who has them knows, they need trimmed if your trying to make your place look classy. Fresh leafs make good compost anyhow and there is often a need to prune. Down side, the trees grow too high for me to simply use a regular knife or machete.

So after jumping or balancing on various objects precariously in order to reach these leafs I finally got “smart” and made the knife stick.

Step 1.

Get old kitchen knives from a thrift shop, yard sale, or wherever. You could get a new one but why be that person?

                                     

Step 2. Remove handles. This is for knives with clear rivets holding the tang in place.

If you hit them with a hammer sometimes the handles will shatter off. Use eye protection if you don't want to risk getting a shard in your eye.

                                    

Step 3. Wash them down. The handles will frequently have goo from glue on them.

Step 4. Get your stick. A broom handle works great but you can use a fairly wide variety and sizes of sticks.

Step 5. very important step. - pre drill your stick with slightly smaller holes than your screws will fit in. This pilot hole will prevent your stick from cracking as the screw goes into it. If a knife has 3 rivit holes I do the middle one first and then put a screw in it. Then I can shift the blade to the right or left to get the angle I like. Once I've set my angle (slightly curved is ideal but I have both kinds) I put the other 2 screws in.

Step 6. Try out your new knife stick. I use different blades for different tasks. A quick swish will take off most banana leafs.

A few tips.

Take leafs from the fruiting side to help balance the tree. Fruit will frequently pull banana or papaya trees down. Take the lower leafs to encourage upward growth.

Take leafs and compost them. Take leafs that shade other things.

Special thanks to my cousin and his wife for the generous donation of a high quality, lifetime warranty, super sturdy shovel. 

http://www.bonanza.com/booths/RedEarthSeeds that's his seed store

                                                      Word of wisdom:                                                                                                        Learn to use what you got and you will not need what you have not.


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