Inventions - Wheel Hoe

I think that farmers should invent tools for farming...don't you? Not engineers. It's only when you actually use something that you get to know all the little things that make it either an ok tool or a great one. Having said that, Steve and I are looking at getting a wheel hoe as you know. Prices vary from $130 to well over $700. And since we're farming on a budget, Steve did some internet research, asked me some questions, went to Canadian Tire for angle iron and now is happily making a prototype in the driveway. He's basically making a platform attached to a wheel and pushed along by 2 handles made of conduit bent in our pipe bender. Now he's making a cultivator blade that will attach to the bottom of the platform. I know it's hard to explain but I will get a couple of pics uploaded once he's finished it tomorrow. It may not be pretty...but it's cheap! Probably by the time all is said and done we'll have a working unit for under $50. I'll let you know. Here's a picture of a wheel hoe, ours won't be so pretty but it's a tool that's going to save us time and labour and will be very well used so I don't really care what it looks like. Steve jokingly said that if it turns out really well he'll make you all a kit that you just have to bolt together and you can buy your very own cultivator for $59 + shipping. Maybe he's on to something, but first we've got to try it out! We'll of course let you know how it goes.

Things in the garden are fine. Not much happening at the moment. The chickens are growing and hopefully we'll have some veggies growing soon. The lettuce and zucchini are taking their time but are putting a bit of growth in this warm weather, the loofah's are ready to go into the ground, and the Tiny Tim tomatoes we've got in pots at home have several flower clusters each which is great. The bees seem happy and that's about it for today. Gave everything a good soaking to tide it through the next few sunny and hot days. I just have to water a patch on the side of the house tomorrow morning and I'm done watering here at the house. I like to water very early in the morning if I can. It gives the roots time to suck up the water before the sun dries everything out, but the leaves don't stay wet for too long and encourage mould. Without the sun up it does mean less water evaporates so it's more efficient to conserving water too. But the biggest conserver has to be the soaker hoses because they only put the water where we want it and they work well on a low pressure system like a well.

Happy Father's Day to you all for tomorrow.

Best Tools = Faster Weeding and Less Back Strain

With my recent back injury, I find it incredibly uncomfortable to be bending over all the time weeding, planting rows of seeds and weeding in general. This coming from a woman who does natural childbirth and had kidney stones removed without a general anesthetic. I'm not exactly sure what I did to my back but the pain has now changed from all over to a central point, hopefully if I can take it easy for another week it will feel stronger. I'm doing stretches and light work but no heavy lifting except moving the trailer occasionally. But hurting my back during spring planting was possibly the worst time of year for this. I could barely walk for several days and it drove me crazy with frustration. I finally got the garden tilled and now I couldn't do anything about it. Exasperating to say the least!!

Some of the tools that we're going to get for our new homestead are these: a broad fork, a row seeder, and a wheel hoe. So being laid up gave me plenty of time to see what's available and to see what tools work best. And now you can benefit from my research.


The benefits of having a broad fork, which is commonly used in Europe, are the ability to loosen soil to a depth of about 12 inches compared to 6 inches with a tiller. You also don't invert the soil, leaving the top few inches of microbial life happy and healthy and leave your worms in 1 piece instead of several pieces using a tiller. And no, cutting a worm in half doesn't make 2 worms...just a dead bit and a short worm called 'Stumpy' by his friends. Broad forks are easy to use despite their size because you can use your own weight to push them into the soil and having 2 handles makes them easier to lever back as you loosen the soil.

Next, actually second on my list of tool wishes, is a wheel cultivator. There are several available locally but the one I like best so far is this one by Valley Oak Tools in California. I like the adjustable handle height, ability to offset it, curve, and the attachment choices from a furrow plow to a 4 tine cultivator. This gives us the ability to dig, furrow, hill up and weed all our veggie beds while standing upright and walking.


In case you're wondering what tool is first on my list, it's a precision row seeder. But as my budget is limited at present, I will have to keep sitting to plant or using a regular hand hoe. I guess there's always teenage slave labour too. 

We live in an age when we know that fossil fuels are running out and becoming both increasingly environmentally destructive and expensive. Using fertilizers not derived from fossil fuels and looking for hand tools that make efficient use of human labour should be a priority for any small scale grower, especially for those of us trying to be as environmentally responsible as possible. Whether yo believe it or not, oil is running out.

Fuel	Reserves	Years left
Oil	1,386 billion barrels	46.2
Gas	187.1 trillion cubic metres	58.6
Coal	860,938 million tonnes	118

Source: BP. Reserves calculated at current price using current technologies as reported by BBC, 2012.

Well, I'll write more later but today I'm hoping to get both cucumber, potato and tomato plants in before I get more sunburned. I need to start early so I can come home and clean up before taking a friend to her Dr's appt.

2 Jays are having an argument outside my window, not sure what that's all about. But it's a good alarm that's for sure, they don't sound at all melodic!