BONEHEADS.
Nearly every morning for the last week when we would go to check the garden, we'd discover a plant has been brutally ravaged. Decimated even. At first it was a single tomato plant, then fell another. A squash was next. Then lastly, the fourth in four nights, a cucumber plant toppled. That was enough for us. A plant per night is devastating to our small operation. If 30 nights equalled thirty tomato plants, we'd be pretty bummed little gardeners. The plants look like someone was coming into the garden, arbitrarily selecting a transplant to torture, and snipping the leaves off hatefully before leaving them there as some sort of weird pestilent calling card. Our first thought was an over-zealous bird, pecking away at leaves chasing down insects. And that might make sense for one plant, or even two, but not four. Our papa farmer, Eric, said it might be a "damn squirrel," and suggested I should bury myself in the dirt and wait for it. We went through the list of pests it could be and felt completely stumped, until my savvy and beautiful wife found somewhere on the internet that mice fancy this type of M.O..Having mice in your house is one thing, you can tighten up your cleaning efforts, set traps, buy a cat if you'd like––there are things you can do to keep them out of your house. But a field is a much bigger space and we wanted to do things--whats the word?--humanely, so we looked for natural ways to ward them off the plants. One article suggested hot sauce or a garlic/salt/water mixture sprayed upon the plants to deter the mice, or other small menaces, from destroying our precious plants.That seemed like a pretty straight forward and natural approach. As luck would have it, we have some wonderful hot sauce! I made it myself, in fact. Great! We loaded the juice into a spray bottle, diluted it with some water and applied it to every squash, cucumber and tomato plant we had in the garden without a second thought.Now, if you want an alternative to round-up, you can use vinegar...and although our concoction wasn't entirely vinegar, it was pretty darn close. One by one, the plants began to wilt and terror overcame us. We had just, actively and aggressively, applied natural herbicide to our plants. Stupid. We rushed to clean them with water and luckily, in the end, only one plant died because of us. But sadly, the nightly devastation continues, and we've resorted to mouse traps. Which brings us to this...anyone else have good ideas to keep these little buggers out of our plants? Good stories of being a dummy farmer in your early years? D'oh.
- Jesse.
HUMAN DRAFT: A BROADFORK REVIEW.
VIDEO HERE.
This post is about plowing with a Broadfork. For a more comprehensive look at broadforks, click here. Or read both. We're cool with that, too.
By putting the word "Draft" in the middle of our farm name, Hannah and I thought it would be a constant reminder of our holistic goals, to one day farm with draft animals. But until we're set up and ready for them, we've had to step in and fill that role ourselves. Right now, we make up the draft in Rough Draft, and to be quite honest with you, we're rather enjoying the responsibility. I know it goes for both of us, but I like being in the dirt, and the physicality it takes to reach it. I make a study of the different ants, worms and bugs we uncover––it's the vitality of our garden, and it's fascinating. Being a draft animal has provided a lot of insight as to the workings of our garden and all the things that create it. The broadfork is the tool that has made this possible, so in a two-part post, I'm going to explain how it works, then give a review of the two we've used for anyone interested in being an insane person.
Part 1: HOW TO PLOW WITH A BROADFORK. The broad fork is a crude, simple tool which requires more energy than intelligence, but ultimately...it's a safe and effective way to plow your soil. Fair warning: it's not easy, in fact, it's very hard at first but gets easier as you build the muscles it requires. Be mindful of your back, and drink lots of water, but that goes for doing anything always.To start, stab the instrument in the ground (making sure to avoid piercing your feet!) then stand on the cross bar and work the tines into the soil. This takes a little practice, but it's a pretty simple procedure and you can pretty much leave it up to muscle memory to nail it down for you. Next, while holding on to the handles, lean back and work the instrument towards the ground, bringing up a big hunk of soil in the process. When the handles near the ground step on them, reach up and flip the clod of soil over and slip it back into the gap you removed it from upside down so the sod will break down underneath the soil. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat...
From there you can determine how you want to till, either by hand, rototiller, or by mulch. We've used all three, and all three work great. The longer the turned-over soil sits, the more it will break down naturally, which can help with the tilling no matter how you do it.
Part 2: BROADFORK REVIEW.
Before we'd moved to Danville, we ordered a broadfork from Johnny's Seeds, designed by famed farmer, Eliot Coleman. It's a lighter-weight instrument which we effectively destroyed in about a month. However, as our papa farmer, Eric, told us: by plowing with it, we were abusing it. The broadfork from Johnny's is not meant to plow. It's meant to cultivate already worked soil, aerate subsoil, or dig up root crops such as carrots and parsnips. If your garden is already worked up, I imagine this is a wonderful instrument to have around. I personally enjoyed the lightweight quality, and the wooden handles which had a lot of flexibility, but I found the tines far too lightweight for most jobs. They bent almost instantly, compromising the integrity of the steel until it eventually broke, but again, we were plowing. Find it HERE. Specs:•5 10 1/2" long curved tines spaced every 4"•20" wide base (also available in 15" or 27")$189.00
After we lost two tines and one handle on Johnny's broadfork, and since we still needed and wanted one, we got online and found a more heavy duty instrument from a maker in Oregon called Meadow Creature. It's entirely made of steel, and though considerably heavier, it's designed to handle plowing. For the last week or so we've been using this instrument and the results have been ideal. The weight can be a little taxing, but it does not require a second person with a shovel as Johnny's Broadfork had. The tines are thicker and slightly longer (at 14" compared to 10 1/2") than Johnny's, but the base is about the same width. Between the two, I would have to say this is undoubtedly the better broadfork for the human draft animal. Find it HERE. Specs:• 4 14" tines (also available with 16")• 21 1/2" base• 22lbs$195 (plus shipping, which was around $50 for us in KY).
If I had my druthers, and a lot more money, I would actually prefer two broadforks, one for plowing and one for digging and aerating. For the plowing, I would to stick with the Meadow Creature broadfork and for digging, I would like the exact same design, only slightly thinner tines, and wooden handles in lieu of the all steel design for a lighter-weight tool. Johnny's Broadfork is decent, but simply more novelty than practical and I don't really recommend it for serious use. Until Meadow Creature designs a lighter weight one, however, we'll just stick with the one we got, their original model. And fine by us.- Jesse.
HERE is a more recent broadfork roundup.
REAPING WHAT YOU SOW.
Possibly the only thing better than a home-cooked meal is a homegrown one. And although our dinner this evening wasn't comprised solely of our own food, it did contain a little chard and kale we grew together, picked together and prepared together excitedly––the first things we've eaten out of our garden this year! I suppose to a farmer, it's akin to the first dollar a new business makes, or the first time an artist sells a painting, book or record...and we felt like we'd done something spectacular. There will be much more food to come––hopefully innumerable dinners will spill from our gardens––but we wanted to hang this one up here on our blog, to frame it, to show it off to our readers: the first meal we grew as husband and wife, in our garden, together.- Jesse.
