Tiny Farm Gear

Simple and effective, these folding bag holders are great, except in anything more than a light breeze. Here, I was using them to fill large leaf bags with grass mulch. This has been my only use for them so far, and they’re worth it just for that. But they’d come in handy for any sort of collection, including leafy greens harvest. They’re also reversible: stand them on one end or the other for large or regular size bags. These were under $15 at the local hardware store.

Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional American Skills (Second Edition) (Reader’s Digest) is on my order list! I came across it while looking at online articles on root cellars (somehow had reproduced an excellent basement root cellar cutaway iillustration). It sounds fantastic: “This book, first published in 1981 and recently updated, was probably many folks’ first in-depth exposure to the idea of a simpler life, making things by hand, and enjoying a stronger sense of control over personal budgets, home projects, and lifestyles. Hundreds of projects are listed, illustrated in step-by-step diagrams and instructions: growing and preserving your own food, converting trees to lumber and building a home from it, traditional crafts and homesteading skills, and having fun with recreational activities like camping, fishing, and folk dancing without spending a lot of money. This book will have you dreaming and planning from the first page!” I read endless positive reviews, and, while in the end you gotta make up your own mind, 52 of 55 reviews on Amazon.com gave it 5 stars (the other 3 gave it 4), and that’s a pretty resounding endorsement! It’s a little beyond the strict scope of tiny farming and gardening, but totally in the spirit and no doubt with lots of useful farm and garden stuff. As far as books go, can’t wait!!

If you mess about a lot with hoses, you can save a lot of time with quick couplers. I’ve only used these brass ones with zero problems, and there are plastic versions which may be just durable. In my case, where I’m more or less hand irrigating a couple of acres, dragging around and joining 100′ hoses, and attaching a variety of sprinklers and shut-off valves, they’re a luxury. I do wonder if I’m significantly reducing water flow by having several inline, haven’t figured that part out yet, but there’s no obvious noticeable difference. The couplers also come in handy for changing nozzles on a single hose, like in the greenhouse, where I regularly use a gun-type nozzle, water breaker, fan head and watering wand. In this application, an inline mini shutoff valve placed between the hose and the female fitting completes the convenience. They come in pairs, but you probably need way more male fittings. I get mine at Lee Valley (click the link), where you can get singles. I’ve seen the same ones at hardware stores. Get extra step washers as well!

Water seedlings quickly, with no flattened plants! The Redhead water breaker catalog description is, in my experience, perfectly accurate: “Softest flow of any water breaker that we have tested while still offering enough water volume. Perfect for all watering needs, especially for young seedlings. Stainless steel screen for years of reliable use.” The flow is high volume and incredibly low pressure and gentle. Admittedly, as I often water from a well, the water pressure is quite low to begin with, but I also use it with the pond pump, which puts out 50-60 psi (luxury!), and the Redhead is excellent. And, I’ve had the same head for three or four years banging around in the greenhouse and out in the field with no problems.

This gear really works! Bug clothing is made of a fine polyester mesh that forms a formidable barrier between mosquitoes (and black flies!) and your skin. It’s a simple concept. I’ve had a set, jacket and pants, for a few years now (the link is to Lee Valley, where I got mine, but I’m sure it’s available elsewhere as well). I don’t think I’ve ever worn the pants, because I’m usually in the field in overalls or jeans. But I can recommend the top. With hood up and zipped, it’s light, loose, and soon forgotten about, as are the biting bugs. In fact, only the mesh over your face takes a few minutes getting used to before you stop noticing it. Just don’t spit!

This compact weather station is one handy and entertaining little item. Some may consider it no more than a toy, or even a waste of money, but at under $15US, you really can’t go wrong. You mount it on a pole, set it out in the field, and it measures wind, rainfall and temperature. I use separate rain guages for rainfall, and various analog and digital min/max thermometers in different locations for temperature, so what’s left is wind direction and speed, which is what I like about it. Specifically, I like being able to check wind speed, and watch it fluctuate. You read the speed in miles or kilometers along the curved edge, as the indicator flaps up and down on the wind. For me, being able to attach a reference to what I feel is kinda useful, like, “Oh, that’s about a 20 mph wind!” :) I’m not sure of the particular brand, this one is from Veseys, and I’ve seen very similar or identical ones in the hardware stores.

A 7,000′ reel just like this has been sitting in the drive shed for a while now, waiting to be tested. Ro-Drip, from John Deere, is one brand of drip tape. I can’t speak to how it compares with other drip tape, but I have heard it highly recommended. In any case, drip irrigation has serious advantages over other methods—watering with a hose, soaker hoses, sprinklers—for any size garden. It is super-efficient, the usual figure being 70% better water use than sprinklers. It also operates at low pressure, from under 10psi to around 20 max, so it can even be gravity fed from a raised container, a barrel or something much larger. It can be used on the surface, or buried. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re growing organically, floating row cover is practically indispensable for insect protection, and as frost protection, it’s an easy, inexpensive way to extend the season at both ends. It’s made of spunbond polyester, a porous fabric that lets rain through just fine, and comes in different weights for different applications. Weights range from the ultralight, for use as an insect barrier only (it doesn’t do much against cold), to super-heavy, for frost protection up to around 8°F (-13°C). There is a protection trade-off: the heavier, the less light transmission. I’ve been getting by with just one weight, the medium-light AG-19 from the Agribon line, which provides up to 4°F of frost protection, and 85% light transmission. With Agribon’s heaviest, AG-70, only 30% of the light gets through. The edges are typically buried or weighted (heavy rocks work) against the wind. The lighter weights can be supported by most transplanted seedlings (leave it loose enough to accommodate growth), and heavier stuff is no problem for mature plants in fall (that’s the “floating”). For seedlings, letting the cover touch leaves can allow cold burns, especially if the fabric gets damp and then freezes (this can be fairly damaging, but I haven’t found it to be fatal so far). In this case, you can stick short, non-pointy stakes every few feet to keep the cover up. I use Agribon because it’s the only brand I’ve found in smaller bulk quantities (e.g. 1000′ roll) where I am in Canada, and it’s worked great, but there are other brands of floating row cover, like Reemay and Agrofabric, which probably perform the same. (In the photo, we’re covering mid-season squash transplants to protect them from cucumber beetles.)

Sure, there are thousands upon thousands of calendars out there, lots of ‘em FREE, but they aren’t built equal! This is my third year with the At-A-Glance Monthly Wall Calendar, and I swear by it. It’s perfect for field notes, with ample (but not excessive) daily space for critical jottings, and a matt surface for easy writing with any pen or pencil you have at hand (glossy calendars can be a pain). I use it for the field basics: planting dates, rainfall and other weather notes, irrigation, repairs, and so forth. The dimensions are perfect, tall and narrow, to fit backs of doors and other narrower bits of wall. The wire binding is stiff and allows easy page turning. It comes in four sizes, up to 20″x30″ (I use one size down, 15-1/2″x22-3/4″).

Not the most elegant bit of garden gear, but it could be a winner. This strap-on stool comes from the dairy world. Suppliers are listed on the linked page.