From bed prep to the packing shed, built by one French engineer's workshop
Terrateck have spent nearly ten years solving the practical problems of diversified organic market gardening. Mechanical weeding is still the heart of it, but the range now runs from soil preparation right through to washing and packing. Stocked here in the UK, so there is no import bill and no waiting on a shipment from France.
Ten collections, in the order you actually use them
Terrateck started with mechanical weeding and never left it, but the range now covers a whole season. Here it is laid out the way the work happens rather than alphabetically.
Not sure which tool fits your beds? We grow with this kit ourselves.
Talk it through with usThe frame is half of it. Here is the other half.
The single most common mistake when buying a Terrateck wheel hoe is buying only the wheel hoe. The frames ship without tools, because the tool you need depends entirely on what you are weeding and when.
The chassis carries the weight and the handlebars keep you upright, so you are pushing rather than bending. What actually cuts the weeds bolts on the front, and swaps in seconds without spanners. Angle, width and height all adjust, so the same frame works a path, an onion bed and a ridge.
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1Start with the frame. Single or double, see below. This is the part that lasts twenty years.
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2Add at least one attachment. Nothing on the frame cuts anything on its own.
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3Match the tool to the weed stage. Oscillating and fine weeders for thread and cotyledon stage, blades and claws once weeds are established, ridgers for earthing up.
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4Running two tools at once needs a secondary mount, or a toolbar with support clamps. Ask us before ordering if you are unsure.
For the weeds a blade will never reach
Flame weeding does not burn weeds. It ruptures the cells with a fast blast of heat, and the plant collapses over the following day. Done at the right moment it clears a bed without touching the soil, which means you are not bringing the next flush of seed up to the light.
The classic use is the stale seedbed. Prepare the bed, water it, let the weed seed germinate, then flame the whole thing just before a slow crop like carrot or parsnip breaks through. You get a clean bed at the stage where hand weeding costs the most.
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✓Best on young broadleaf weeds at cotyledon stage, where a moment of heat is enough.
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✓Ideal for slow germinators. Carrots and parsnips sit in the ground for weeks while weeds get a head start.
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✓No soil disturbance, so you are not turning up a fresh flush of weed seed every pass.
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!Grasses and perennials will regrow. Their growing points sit below ground, out of reach of the heat.
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!Mind the fire risk around dry stubble, mulch film, fleece and polytunnel plastic.
The weeding you do not have to do
Every hour spent laying mulch properly is several hours you never spend weeding that bed. The problem has always been that laying it properly by hand is slow, and laying it badly is worse than not laying it at all.
A mulch layer pulls the film or fabric tight and buries both edges in one pass, which is the difference between a bed that holds all season and one that lifts in the first real wind. Hole cutters and burners then let you plant through it accurately, at consistent spacings, without tearing the sheet.
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1Tension and buried edges are what make mulch work. Both are hard to get right by hand and automatic with a layer.
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2Consistent planting holes mean you can run a wheel hoe down the paths afterwards without catching the sheet.
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3Worth the spend at the point where you are laying enough beds each season that a bad wind costs you a weekend.
It started on a lecture room bench in France
Pierre Soudan and Romain Wittrisch met during a Master's in entrepreneurship and found they shared the same interest in organic farming. Nearly ten years later they design, manufacture and distribute tools used by market gardeners across Europe.
What has not changed in that time is the approach. Terrateck take tools growers have used for generations, the market garden hoe among them, and put them through their own design office until they suit the way a diversified organic holding actually works today. Adjustable, maintenance free, and built to be repaired rather than replaced.
The range grew outward from mechanical weeding because their customers kept asking. Soil preparation, then planting, then mulching, then harvest, then the packing shed. Not a catalogue assembled from other people's products, but one workshop solving one problem at a time.
What they build around
Made in France, stocked in the UK
The full Terrateck range, without the import bill
Every Terrateck tool we stock is here in the UK and ready to ship. No customs paperwork, no waiting on a shipment from France, and advice from people who use this kit on their own beds.
Buying Terrateck in the UK
French tools, without the French shipping
Terrateck kit is worth owning for a decade. Getting hold of it in the UK should not be the hard part.
Held in UK stock
The range is on our shelves here, not routed through France once you have ordered.
No import bill
No customs paperwork, no duty to work out, no courier handling fee landing a week later.
We use this kit
We are growers first. If we have not run a tool on our own beds we will tell you so.
Ask before you buy
Wheel hoe frames ship without attachments. Tell us your bed widths and crops and we will spec it with you.
Watch and learn
See the tools working
Filmed by Terrateck on French market gardens.