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Garden tools for self sufficiency on rough land

 
Kate Downham
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I did a blog post about my favourite garden tools on my homestead here: https://thenourishinghearthfire.com/2022/10/12/my-favourite-tools-for-self-sufficient-gardening-on-rough-land/



A close first and second on my list is my all metal broadfork and my peasant hoe. These get used a lot around the garden.

Broadforks can be found either with wood handles, or with solid all-metal construction. Pioneering on compacted clay soil I just can't imagine a wooden broadfork lasting long, where as the all-metal one has seen a lot of use here and is going well.

The peasant hoe I find is important to have one that has a good weight - solid enough to do the job, but lightweight enough to not be tiring when used. I've tried heavier ones in shops and just can't imagine getting nearly as much work done as I can with my smaller one.

Long handles on tools are important to me as well - the less bending of the back, the better.

I was wondering what your favourite hand tools are for food gardening on a large scale? What tools work best for your style of gardening? What do you use the most?

Natural Small Batch Cheesemaking A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen Backyard Dairy Goats My website @NourishingPermaculture

 
John C Daley
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I cannot speak about tools, but have you looked at processes to help break the clay down, either lime, gypsum or green manures?

John Daley Bendigo, Australia The Enemy of progress is the hope of a perfect plan
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Jan White
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I just got a broadfork and really like it, too. Mine's an all metal one from lee valley. The only thing I don't like about it is when you attach the handles when you first get it, they slide down inside the upturned ends of the U-shaped part that the tines are on. If you leave it outside in a heavy rain, you're going to get water down inside the U-shaped part. Seems like a poor design to me.

I'm using my broadfork to break up some heavily packed silty sand that was driven on a lot, back when that part of the property had powerlines on it. In some spots I can't even get the fork all the way into the ground, it's so hard. They specifically tell you not to pry up rocks cause you'll bend the tines, but there's no avoiding that at my place. So far I haven't encountered anything bigger than cantaloupe sized rocks, and no bent tines.

Probably my two absolute favourite tools, though, are my geared bypass loppers and my wheelbarrow.

There's an area of the property that still has powerlines, and we like to keep it clear of trees ourselves, rather than having brushers come through. As long as the growth is below a certain height, no one bothers to come, so I use my loppers to coppice the mostly birch and aspen in that area. The bigger stuff I cut down is good for garden stakes and woodchips. The smaller stuff can be used as mulch. I use them to trim off branches up to about 7 feet in our little copses for wildfire control. They're also nice for cutting down the bigger sunflower and millet stalks.

We have narrow, uneven paths around our property. They wind around trees and stumps, go over exposed bedrock and through sand pits. Our property is long and narrow, so I'm often moving stuff (mostly dirt, rocks, and mulching materials) a fair distance. A wheelbarrow can manage the paths and hold enough to make the trip worthwhile. It's also good for hauling firewood to the house, as long as there isn't too much snow. We have two wheelbarrows, and I really think we need another one. I use one pretty much every day and sometimes I have to empty out some topsoil I'm mixing or some mulch that doesn't have a home yet in order to use it for whatever my current job is. When my husband is home and working, we could even do with four of them.
 
Kate Downham
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John C Daley wrote:I cannot speak about tools, but have you looked at processes to help break the clay down, either lime, gypsum or green manures?



All those things can be a good help for land that's already cleared.

Sometimes my strategy for new garden areas is to first broadfork (this helps get small stumps out at the same time as aerating), then dig trenches and put seed potatoes and broad beans in the trenches, cover with a small amount of compost, sow green manure in the dug-up bits, and when the potatoes start to need hilling, there's some green manure growth, and this helps build up the soil. After the potatoes are harvested I add lime and it's ready for other crops.

One of the PDC teachers I learned from recommended sowing grains or other grasses after potatoes, as this helps to rebuild soil structure after all the disturbance from harvesting the potatoes.

Natural Small Batch Cheesemaking A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen Backyard Dairy Goats My website @NourishingPermaculture

 
Ben Zumeta
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A good silage fork (12x16” or so) moves woodchips and similar materials many times a quickly as a pitch fork or shovel.

This is all just my opinion based on a flawed memory

 
L. Johnson
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kama (sickle),
nata (billhook/froe/machete),
hatchet,
secateurs,
shovel,
silky pruning saw
4 meter extending silky pruning saw

My land isn't rough... but it gets rough, jungle style. These things help me manage the jungle.

一期一会

 
Luke Mitchell
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Ben Zumeta wrote:A good silage fork (12x16” or so) moves woodchips and similar materials many times a quickly as a pitch fork or shovel.



That's interesting. I've always used a bull-nosed shovel to move woodchip and found it to be fast and relatively painless. Mine looks similar to this, although with a little more of a bowl to the shovel blade.



In general, my all-time favourite tool for rough ground is my mattock. Brilliant for trenching, digging over stony ground and grubbing out roots!

Small-holding, coppice and grassland management on a 16-acre site.

 
Eric Hanson
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Kate,

Great post, and I love the emphasis on heavy clay soil.

I like that you included a picture of the broadfork, but as I know of so many types of hoes, could you include a picture of a peasant hoe?  I just don’t know exactly what type of hoe that is.

But again, great post!

Eric

Some places need to be wild

 
Douglas Alpenstock
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Luke Mitchell wrote:

Ben Zumeta wrote:A good silage fork (12x16” or so) moves woodchips and similar materials many times a quickly as a pitch fork or shovel.



That's interesting. I've always used a bull-nosed shovel to move woodchip and found it to be fast and relatively painless. Mine looks similar to this, although with a little more of a bowl to the shovel blade.


I just use a big snow shovel for light, bulky materials. Lord knows I have enough of them kicking around.
 
Tereza Okava
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i've also got rocky clay and haven't felt too bad about the lack of broadforks here, i'd probably bend it immediately.

Here I use a mattock-like hoe (light wood handle is important, so it doesn't weigh too much) and a CobraHead cultivator, which work for about 90% of what I do.
 
Kate Downham
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Eric Hanson wrote:Kate,

Great post, and I love the emphasis on heavy clay soil.

I like that you included a picture of the broadfork, but as I know of so many types of hoes, could you include a picture of a peasant hoe?  I just don’t know exactly what type of hoe that is.

But again, great post!

Eric



This is the peasant hoe head


Here's what it looks like with its handle, next to my metal toothed rake which gets a bit of use (but not nearly as much as the hoe)

Natural Small Batch Cheesemaking A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen Backyard Dairy Goats My website @NourishingPermaculture

 
Eric Hanson
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Very nice Kate!

That looks fairly close to my grub hoe, but my grub hoe is pretty heavy and really meant to chop into clay soil.

I think if I could only have one hoe it would be a good, solid, forged grub hoe.

Eric

Some places need to be wild

 
Kate Downham
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I could only find a grubbing hoe in a shorter handled version. I have a bad back and need tools with long handles, so chose this one, which was said to be "heavy duty" from a local-ish blacksmith, just not as heavy duty as his grubbing hoe. I have not been disappointed, and even ordered a second one. This one has a really good weight - sturdy enough to do the job, but lightweight enough not to be tiring. When I tried one with a bigger head out at the nursery it just seemed way too heavy to work with.

Natural Small Batch Cheesemaking A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen Backyard Dairy Goats My website @NourishingPermaculture

 
Douglas Alpenstock
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Kate, that's a great all-around tool. I have seen that grub hoe design elsewhere. It will last a lifetime.
 
Eric Hanson
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Kate,

Glad your peasant hoe works well for you.  It looks sturdy and nice that you could find one that was local (ish).

I happened to find my long-handled grub hoe and just knew that it was about perfect for my heavy clay.  I, too, have back issues and the weight of the grub hoe really works for me—I lift it up and I mostly let the weight of the head do the digging work.  Mine came with a file and I sharpen mine razor sharp just before each time I use it.  The combination of the weight and sharp edge really slices into the ground!

But really I think we are (I am) splitting hairs.  These are two very similar tools, mostly differing by the weight of the head.  Both are plainly sturdy and probably the final call comes down to personal preference and ergonomics.

I do have a few other tools that I use for digging in clay (occasionally I envy—just a little—the gardener with sandy soil).  At times I wished I had a broadfork like you, but that is for another day.

Eric

Some places need to be wild

 
Cris Fellows
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Ben Zumeta wrote:A good silage fork (12x16” or so) moves woodchips and similar materials many times a quickly as a pitch fork or shovel.



Okay, now I am asking for a silage fork for Christmas!  I snapped my pitchfork in half doing something it was not meant for.  But I liked it for compost and woodchips, which we use a lot of (I think 5 tree service loads this year).  This looks perfect.

We have a broadfork which I use less and less the more organic material we layer down.  

At present I like my folding pruning saw, Felco pruners, and radius weeder best.  

Together is our favorite place to be

 
R Scott
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My land is Appalachian regrowth forest so a heavy machete, bill hook, etc. is extremely useful for clearing vines, briars, and saplings. It is always a trade off between light and east to carry vs. big and heavy enough to do the job when needed

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Tristan Vitali
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Rough land? I have heavy, wet rocky clay; rough "stump land" / former woodlot full of stumps and buried slash that never seems to rot; blackberry, birches, maples, american beech and clumping grasses being dominant "weeds"

Here's my story in pictures quickly grabbed from a search engine

I generally start here:


From that, I'll move on to a combination of these:






Once that's all handled well enough, it's a few more years with this:


Then, I can finally graduate to the combination of these:




And, after a couple more years still, this FINALLY becomes the tool of choice!


The Camp Project

 
Marco Benito
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Jan White wrote:I just got a broadfork and really like it, too. Mine's an all metal one from lee valley. The only thing I don't like about it is when you attach the handles when you first get it, they slide down inside the upturned ends of the U-shaped part that the tines are on. If you leave it outside in a heavy rain, you're going to get water down inside the U-shaped part. Seems like a poor design to me.

Get that fork of yours welded where it attaches.  End of story.

 
Marco Benito
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The best tool ever....I couldn't figure out how to past the pic, so here is a link.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/1993._Forest_entomologist_Beth_Willhite._Plot_work_and_a_pulaski._%2835618606485%29.jpg
 
Abraham Palma
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Currently I'm using a heavy hoe for digging beds, a saw for pruning, and a small pruner scissor for chop n drop. Occasionally, a sickle for gathering more mulch and a small trowel for planting seedlings.
The wooden handle broadfork we have is almost useless, it cannot pierce the soil when dry and we don't dare to use it in our perennial beds. I want to like it, but unless it rains for good this automn, it won't see any action at all. The spade is completely useless.

https://permies.com/t/175744/permaculture-sites/permaculture-projects/Project-Gardens-Orchard-Dignity

 
Jordan Holland
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I haven't seen any mention of fork hoes like a Canterbury or Magna Grecia. The spikes can be driven into hard ground more easily than a flat blade. The multiple spikes are more stable and get much more done than a single spike on a pick.
IMG_20221113_165820882.jpg
Fork hoes
Fork hoes

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L. Johnson
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Jordan Holland wrote:I haven't seen any mention of fork hoes like a Canterbury or Magna Grecia. The spikes can be driven into hard ground more easily than a flat blade. The multiple spikes are more stable and get much more done than a single spike on a pick.



These look a LOT like a three prong hoe that is sold around here. I have no idea what they're called in Japanese, but our local blacksmith specializes in hoes. I'll ask him about the run-down next time I talk to him. I so rarely use a hoe... mostly just to dig up bamboo shoots or when I'm re-landscaping something.

一期一会

 
Jordan Holland
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L. Johnson wrote:
These look a LOT like a three prong hoe that is sold around here. I have no idea what they're called in Japanese, but our local blacksmith specializes in hoes. I'll ask him about the run-down next time I talk to him. I so rarely use a hoe... mostly just to dig up bamboo shoots or when I'm re-landscaping something.



They seem to have evolved in cultures all over the world. I take that as proof of their utility.

And he said, "I want to live as an honest man, to get all I deserve, and to give all I can, and to love a young woman whom I don't understand. Your Highness, your ways are very strange."

 
Ezra Byrne
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My most frequently used tools:
6" grub hoe - all the digging
Dump wagon - all the moving/mixing/firewood hauling
8" grape hoe - all the weeding
Standard long handled shovel - too many uses to list
Pitchfork - loosening mulch, spreading hay
Small spade hoe (heart hoe) - drawing rows / hilling rows
D handle digging fork - digging potatoes / sweet potatoes

I have been a customer of easydigging.com for over 10 years. They have good quality forged tools that will last longer than my lifetime. They are quite heavy but I find using them easier for me because gravity does the work - I don't have to swing it down, just lift it up (thousands of times hehe).

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Christopher Weeks
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Cris Fellows wrote:

Ben Zumeta wrote:A good silage fork (12x16” or so) moves woodchips and similar materials many times a quickly as a pitch fork or shovel.



Okay, now I am asking for a silage fork for Christmas!



I use this fork for moving wood chips and stuff like that. It's pretty great, but some does fall through.
 
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