Tiny Farm Gear

The broadfork holds a lot of promise. You can break up soil without turning it, and, according to Eliot Coleman, you can prepare vast areas of garden in little time, with little effort (let gravity do the work). My broadfork is not the Coleman design (available at Johnny’s Seed), instead, the U-Bar Digger from Lee Valley. I tried to try it, but the ground has always been too hard. I suspect the design. The tines, rather than being pointed, have a chisel edge (the ends of the rods are cut at an angle) and they don’t easily pierce clayey ground. And at 19 lbs, it’s quite a heavy hand tool to haul around. Maybe it works great on lighter soil, but the clay-loam we have here is where it would really make a difference. I’ll try again next spring.

The 10-tine Lee Valley Compost & Mulch Fork is a versatile tool that’s well-suited to a bunch of different tasks. It’s intended for shoveling compost and mulch, and works fine for that (although for moving around bulkier mulch, like straw, a much wider-tined hay or manure fork works better). I’ve used mine for five seasons, and find it shines at picking up smaller stuff, like stones and crop residue. For fallen tomatoes after the plants have been pulled, it’s perfect, lifting what you want while letting the soil sift through. It’s wide enough to get larger jobs done quickly, and very durable (I haven’t broken the handle or seriously bent tines yet, and it’s done some heavy shoveling). The tines are 1″ spacing. I guess it’s designed by Lee Valley (Canada/US). I just saw a 9-tine SHW Debris/Manure Fork that also looks good for similar tasks (SHW, in Germany, has apparently been making agricultural hand tools since 1267…).

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A soil block maker. This is a stand-up model for 2-1/2″ x 2-1/2″ blocks. With the proper potting mix, these guys let you start transplants without pots. Make the blocks and place them in trays. There are block makers for 3/4″, 1-1/2″, 2″ and 4″ square blocks as well. You can also form the larger blocks with an indent that lets you pot up the 3/4″ starters to a bigger block (although this step may not always work that well). Johnny’s Seed (US) carries a full line.

An inexpensive seeder, probably best for very small gardens, given the size of the seed container. It opens the furrow, drops the seed, covers it up. Comes with six seed plates. Doesn’t seem nearly as versatile as the Earthway, but perhaps has a specialty use in the larger veggie garden. It’s made in Europe, and available there and in North America.

An interesting site full of gardening tips and tricks, the gardeninggrapevine.com offers building instructions and usage advice for this peat moss/soil block maker. Seems like a simple enough way to try out soil blocks, without investing in a commercial block maker. There’s even more DIY block-making info, diagrams and photos here.

The Newer Spreader is a small manure spreader that can be drawn by a compact tractor or riding mower. These small spreaders seem to be aimed primarily at the horse farm market, where the volume of manure is lower than with, say, beef or dairy cattle. On the small farm, they look good for spreading smaller areas, particularly if you don’t use the big tractor gear required for the larger spreaders. They’re ground-driven, which means the spreading action is determined by the speed at which the wheels turn as they’re being pulled (larger spreaders are usually PTO-driven, connected directly to the engine, and the spreading action is not determined by tractor movement). I haven’t tried one yet, but this class of spreaders looks promising.

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A great little fabrication project, this simple cart is a serious time- and back-saver for harvesting low-growing greens like mesclun and spinach. Check out the details and the construction plans. To try it with the materials at hand, we built something similar, with wider wheels and a board for a seat, but the same three-wheel design. It’s used for cutting 50′x1.5′ beds of mesclun and spinach, and it’s FANTASTIC, particularly great for saving your back. A new one built closer to spec is planned!

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From the Netherlands, the Thilot Holland HZ423 seeder looks like a cross between the EarthWay and the old Planet Jr. Seed drops through an aperture in a seed plate, like the Planet Jr. (and unlike the EarthWay, which relies on a revolving vertical plate to carry seed up and into a chute—much less reliable). A couple of features mentioned in the literature sound interesting: a seed brush in the hopper which it seems is to keep seed loose and well-separated, and an adjustable control for step-seeding, which can leave up to 20cm (7.8″) between drops (that’s interesting, wonder how it works). The price tag is fairly steep: €686 from the manufacturer in the Netherlands.