A recent question posted on a permaculture networking site that I participate in asked, “How do you keep from getting depressed in the winter when there is so little active gardening to do?” Aside from the fact that winter is just as busy as any other time of the year for me, I thought about the question in more general terms. How do you keep from getting depressed when you’re among the millions of longtime jobless "discouraged workers"? Even the term “discouraged worker” sounds like you should be depressed. Maybe it’s time to think differently.
Before my sudden transition to a new career as a subsistence micro-farmer, I spent 30 years working in the automotive industry. About 20 of those years was as a product design and development engineer and the final 10 were in sales / marketing / strategic planning. Beginning in 2004 (probably a little late) I realized that significant changes to the industry were coming soon and growth, particularly for companies in automotive related businesses, was at or very near an end. Actually, growth was not only at an end but the automotive business would soon be shrinking.
On top of it all, corporations have been for years in a headlong rush to send jobs from the U.S. to low cost countries. (I always scoff when the quarterly GDP numbers come out from the ministry of economic propaganda. What product are they talking about? Pick up anything in your local hardware store and there are better than even odds that “Made In China” will be stamped somewhere on the product or packaging. Even “American made” cars have many components manufactured in China and elsewhere. Even something as American as a pickup truck.) In 2005 I was laid off. After working for a year trying to maintain a middle class lifestyle while starting a small farm, I gave up and started looking for another job. Although I did eventually find a new position, it didn’t work out and now I’m back in farming mode. But we’re not trying to maintain anymore, we’re just trying to survive.
We’ve moved from an upper middle class income to one that’s significantly below the official “poverty line”. This has required adjustments to our lifestyle and attitudes. Something that previously cost “just $100” is now “really expensive”. For someone who has derived his self worth primarily from his job and paycheck for nearly his entire adult life, this is a big change! It could be really easy to feel depressed over the situation particularly since there is no way back. There are no comparable jobs for someone with my experience now and there are going to be far fewer in the not too distant future. Which means that even more people will be in this situation in the coming months and years.
As I’ve told my wife over the last year, we’re ahead of the curve. We’re among the first harvest of the “Long Descent” or the “Long Emergency”. We all need to reorder our lives to a much lower energy and consumption level than we as a nation have seen in over 100 years. We need a “Plan C”, but we’re not going to get one from anyone but ourselves. Whatever the hell you want to call it, the future is going to be about less and surviving on less. Our children will have less than we do, their children will have less still. Our job is to prepare them for that future and to survive the best that we can.
Still, I like many others need to have a measure of success on a daily basis. So each morning I sit down and write a list of things to do that day in my handy dandy notebook. Sometimes I get them all done, sometimes things come up and they don’t, sometimes the list is just too ambitious. But I’m learning and measuring my progress. At the end of the day I’ve accomplished a lot. When I look around our little farm, I realize just how much I’ve done over the last year and I’m delighted.
I guess the point of this post is that when you stay on top of things with simple measures, all of those little jobs completed each day add up to some major achievements.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Chainsaw bar lubricant
Think about this for a minute. Go to the lawn and garden store and buy a gallon of bar oil. Take it home and pour it on the ground. What?!
I’ve been thinking about that lately after reading about the spored bar oil available from Fungi Perfecti. They use a vegetable based, biodegradable oil and recommend that the spored oil be diluted 10:1 with canola oil or sunflower oil before using it in a chainsaw. So, I called them to talk about it and confirmed that those oils will work in a chainsaw on a regular basis, provided you’re careful not to overheat the chain and bar. They also said that Stihl markets a biodegradable bar oil.
So, I started thinking about it. Where does the bar oil go? Certainly some goes on the wood, some gets vaporized (but probably not much), and some goes on the ground. So, if I use a gallon of bar oil over the course of the year, how is that different from just pouring it on the ground? Well, for one thing the oil is distributed over a much larger area and time so the environment should be more able to deal with the contamination, but it’s still contamination. Maybe we could reduce the hydrocarbon loading in our environment just a little by changing to a biodegradable bar oil. At least maybe one that’s not fossil fuel based.
I’ve been thinking about that lately after reading about the spored bar oil available from Fungi Perfecti. They use a vegetable based, biodegradable oil and recommend that the spored oil be diluted 10:1 with canola oil or sunflower oil before using it in a chainsaw. So, I called them to talk about it and confirmed that those oils will work in a chainsaw on a regular basis, provided you’re careful not to overheat the chain and bar. They also said that Stihl markets a biodegradable bar oil.
So, I started thinking about it. Where does the bar oil go? Certainly some goes on the wood, some gets vaporized (but probably not much), and some goes on the ground. So, if I use a gallon of bar oil over the course of the year, how is that different from just pouring it on the ground? Well, for one thing the oil is distributed over a much larger area and time so the environment should be more able to deal with the contamination, but it’s still contamination. Maybe we could reduce the hydrocarbon loading in our environment just a little by changing to a biodegradable bar oil. At least maybe one that’s not fossil fuel based.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Keeping Chains Sharp
A valuable tool on the small farm, particularly if you’re heating and cooking with wood, is a chainsaw. The trick is to keep the chains sharp so you’re not wasting fuel trying to cut with a dull chain. You could take them to the local lawn and garden store to be sharpened, but around here that costs about $5 per chain per sharpening. And they typically don’t set the depth of cut, so eventually even the newly sharpened chains don’t cut anymore even though there should be more life in them. Bonus for the store, they get to sell you a new chain. Bummer for you. Add on the cost in time and fuel (if you still drive a fossil fuel powered vehicle, just time if you walk or bike) and each sharpening gets more and more costly.
Or you could make a small investment (less than $20) in a couple of simple hand tools to do the job yourself in about 5 minutes if you’re just sharpening the chain, maybe 10 if you’re sharpening and setting the depth of cut. You’ve just saved yourself a bunch of money and time plus improved the efficiency of your saw by always having a sharp chain. You will occasionally need to replace the files, but again the cost is minimal. The fact that you’re not subjecting the cutting edges to the heat of the grinder should also help the chain stay sharper, and you will only remove a minimal amount of metal at each sharpening which should result in longer life.
Assuming the chain lasts through 20 sharpenings you'd spend a total of $116 having the chain sharpened vs. $31 sharpening it yourself. This would be kind of a short life actually, so the savings would be greater doing the job yourself. And you would only buy the sharpening jigs the first time, after the first chain you’ll just need to buy new files occasionally.
A no-brainer isn’t it?
Or you could make a small investment (less than $20) in a couple of simple hand tools to do the job yourself in about 5 minutes if you’re just sharpening the chain, maybe 10 if you’re sharpening and setting the depth of cut. You’ve just saved yourself a bunch of money and time plus improved the efficiency of your saw by always having a sharp chain. You will occasionally need to replace the files, but again the cost is minimal. The fact that you’re not subjecting the cutting edges to the heat of the grinder should also help the chain stay sharper, and you will only remove a minimal amount of metal at each sharpening which should result in longer life.
Assuming the chain lasts through 20 sharpenings you'd spend a total of $116 having the chain sharpened vs. $31 sharpening it yourself. This would be kind of a short life actually, so the savings would be greater doing the job yourself. And you would only buy the sharpening jigs the first time, after the first chain you’ll just need to buy new files occasionally.
A no-brainer isn’t it?
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Hasn’t failed yet, low work bread.
Last year my wife spent one day a week baking bread and cookies for the week. She found it quite stressful and had problems getting the bread dough to rise consistently. Most recipes for bread require that you mix all the ingredients together, knead the dough, go through a first rising, knead the dough, form the loaves, go through a second rising, then bake. If you’ve baked bread before, you know that this is time consuming and doesn’t always work as planned because one rising or the other failed for some reason. Kate was pretty frustrated with the entire process, which really isn’t how we want to live our lives.
So, over the summer I did some research into bread. Now that Kate is working two part time jobs, the baking is my responsibility in addition to all of the other jobs at our little farm. I simply don’t have a day to dedicate to baking. So, I was looking for bread that I could prepare in advance, then bake in the morning while our wood stove is still hot from breakfast.
At the same time, I was looking for ways to preserve our harvest using low energy methods… no freezing or canning. Which leads to fermentation and Bill Mollison’s “Ferment and Human Nutrition”, which my brother-in-law loaned to me some years ago. I’m not sure why Richard had the book, but he also had Mollison’s “Introduction to Permaculture” and “Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual”. Anyway, I was busily scanning “Ferment” when I happened upon Mollison’s story about his days as a baker. It seems that he prepared a wet “sponge” the night before, then added the remaining ingredients in the morning, kneaded the dough, formed the loaves, etc.
So, I decided to experiment and have settled on the following basic recipe for two loaves of plain white bread.
Ingredients:
8 cups flour (I use high gluten flour usually, but whole wheat can be substituted for a portion or all of it)
4 cups warm water
2 tablespoons salt (I use sea salt)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
Proof the yeast as follows:
Mix ½ cup of the warm water with the yeast and sugar. Set aside for about five minutes. It should get pretty foamy.
Mix the sponge:
Measure 4 cups of the flour into a large bowl (5qt or larger). Add the proofed yeast and the remaining water. Mix. Cover and set aside overnight, at least 12 hours for whole wheat. When I cover the bowl, I use wax paper and a clean towel. The sponge gets pretty active and will stick to the towel without the wax paper layer.
The next morning mix the rest of the flour and the salt into the sponge, knead on a floured surface. The dough will still be pretty wet, so don’t be afraid to add flour during kneading, but also don’t worry if it sticks to your hands. As you knead the flour you’ll feel the dough suddenly change under your hands (less than five minutes worth of kneading, really). Stop kneading then. Butter two loaf pans, divide the dough and form the loaves in the pans. Or you can try free form loaves on a baking sheet.
Cover the loaves with a clean towel and set them aside to rise for about 1 hour. After the loaves have risen, slash the tops of the loaves diagonally two or three times then bake for 35 minutes in a hot oven (between 400 and 425 degrees F). Remove the loaves from the pans and set upright on the oven rack and bake for an additional five minutes. Allow the loaves to cool on a wire rack for a few hours.
The actual “work” time for me in the process is no more than 30 minutes total, 10 for the sponge, 10 for finishing the loaves, and about 10 minutes of managing the baking process. And there’s only one kneading and rising.
A general guideline for modifying your own recipe is to use half the flour, all of the liquid, all of the yeast, and all of the sugar for the sponge. The rest of the ingredients get mixed into the bread the next morning just before kneading. We set the sponge in a warmish location, in our house during the winter that’s about 65 degrees F tops. During the night the room temperature drops into the 50’s. The same story for the rising before baking.
If you’ve had poor success with baking bread before, try this process. It hasn’t failed yet and allows me to do other things while baking fresh bread several times a week. And it saves us money. The bread bakes while the stove is hot for breakfast, so the energy expense for baking is zero. Another win, win, win situation.
Here's a photo of two loaves I baked just the other day:
So, over the summer I did some research into bread. Now that Kate is working two part time jobs, the baking is my responsibility in addition to all of the other jobs at our little farm. I simply don’t have a day to dedicate to baking. So, I was looking for bread that I could prepare in advance, then bake in the morning while our wood stove is still hot from breakfast.
At the same time, I was looking for ways to preserve our harvest using low energy methods… no freezing or canning. Which leads to fermentation and Bill Mollison’s “Ferment and Human Nutrition”, which my brother-in-law loaned to me some years ago. I’m not sure why Richard had the book, but he also had Mollison’s “Introduction to Permaculture” and “Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual”. Anyway, I was busily scanning “Ferment” when I happened upon Mollison’s story about his days as a baker. It seems that he prepared a wet “sponge” the night before, then added the remaining ingredients in the morning, kneaded the dough, formed the loaves, etc.
So, I decided to experiment and have settled on the following basic recipe for two loaves of plain white bread.
Ingredients:
8 cups flour (I use high gluten flour usually, but whole wheat can be substituted for a portion or all of it)
4 cups warm water
2 tablespoons salt (I use sea salt)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
Proof the yeast as follows:
Mix ½ cup of the warm water with the yeast and sugar. Set aside for about five minutes. It should get pretty foamy.
Mix the sponge:
Measure 4 cups of the flour into a large bowl (5qt or larger). Add the proofed yeast and the remaining water. Mix. Cover and set aside overnight, at least 12 hours for whole wheat. When I cover the bowl, I use wax paper and a clean towel. The sponge gets pretty active and will stick to the towel without the wax paper layer.
The next morning mix the rest of the flour and the salt into the sponge, knead on a floured surface. The dough will still be pretty wet, so don’t be afraid to add flour during kneading, but also don’t worry if it sticks to your hands. As you knead the flour you’ll feel the dough suddenly change under your hands (less than five minutes worth of kneading, really). Stop kneading then. Butter two loaf pans, divide the dough and form the loaves in the pans. Or you can try free form loaves on a baking sheet.
Cover the loaves with a clean towel and set them aside to rise for about 1 hour. After the loaves have risen, slash the tops of the loaves diagonally two or three times then bake for 35 minutes in a hot oven (between 400 and 425 degrees F). Remove the loaves from the pans and set upright on the oven rack and bake for an additional five minutes. Allow the loaves to cool on a wire rack for a few hours.
The actual “work” time for me in the process is no more than 30 minutes total, 10 for the sponge, 10 for finishing the loaves, and about 10 minutes of managing the baking process. And there’s only one kneading and rising.
A general guideline for modifying your own recipe is to use half the flour, all of the liquid, all of the yeast, and all of the sugar for the sponge. The rest of the ingredients get mixed into the bread the next morning just before kneading. We set the sponge in a warmish location, in our house during the winter that’s about 65 degrees F tops. During the night the room temperature drops into the 50’s. The same story for the rising before baking.
If you’ve had poor success with baking bread before, try this process. It hasn’t failed yet and allows me to do other things while baking fresh bread several times a week. And it saves us money. The bread bakes while the stove is hot for breakfast, so the energy expense for baking is zero. Another win, win, win situation.
Here's a photo of two loaves I baked just the other day:
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| From I love coffee |
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Coffee
A tricky part of writing a focused blog is where to draw the line about posting subject matter. I wrote the following some time ago and never posted it because it’s not specifically about gardening or micro-farming. Lately I’ve changed my mind about it. One of the keys to success is getting maximum productivity from minimum input. We all need to cut back on spending and on energy usage, why not include related topics in the kitchen? Besides, it's my blog.
I love coffee.
One of the challenges facing us is the high cost of good coffee. Now, those of you who don’t drink coffee might say, “So stop drinking it.” Well, that’s much easier said than done. Although I have gone for months, even years, without drinking coffee, I’m much happier when I have my morning cup(s) of joe.
Aside from the cost, I really would prefer that the farmers who grow the coffee make a fair wage and that the coffee is organically grown. So we looked for fair trade, organic coffee and found that it’s fairly pricey, let’s say $10 to $12 for 12 oz. roasted. I’d heard that green coffee stores well, and when freshly roasted is superior in flavor to anything else.
A quick web search turned up the Seven Bridges Cooperative, www.breworganic.com, which sells organic, fair trade green coffee, organic beer brewing supplies, and paraphernalia for roasting and brewing. (There are others, but this is the one I've used.) They also provide instructions for roasting and brewing, which was incredibly helpful. I just wasn’t into buying yet another electric contraption, so an automatic coffee roaster was right off my list. But it’s possible to roast coffee by parching the beans in a cast iron skillet.
We buy 25 pounds of coffee at a time, which for us is a six month supply. Including shipping the cost for the green coffee works out to $6 per pound - a significant savings for us.
The instructions on the Seven Bridges website said that skillet roasting would be a smoky process and they were right. You definitely want a well-ventilated kitchen far from the nearest smoke detector to do this job. The process takes longer than you might think, and uses quite a bit of energy. Stacking this job with several others on a wood fired range reduces our task specific energy usage. We know the beans are fully roasted when the splits of the beans turn completely dark. In order to keep the task manageable, but still have freshly roasted coffee, we roast about a week’s supply at a time.
Once the coffee is roasted the real fun begins, making and drinking a great cuppa. Initially, we used an automatic drip coffee maker, but again this is a separate use of a non-renewable energy source. Plus, drip coffee isn’t all that great anyway. Since the wood stove is hot for breakfast and baking, we boil water in a kettle and pour it over the freshly roasted and ground coffee in a French press. This produces the best tasting coffee I’ve ever had.
Of course, once you have a really good cup of coffee, are you going to put a powdered non-dairy creamer in it? No, no, hell no! We carefully pour the cream off the top of milk provided by Beauty, our Jersey cow. Real coffee and real cream, yum.
We each get two very good cups from our French press, then if we still want more coffee we make a ‘re-tread’ pot by un-pressing the coffee grounds and pouring in more hot water. The ‘re-tread’ is nowhere near as good as the first two cups but still is far better than most of the coffee you can buy ready brewed.
Here’s another recipe for brewing coffee from my Mom’s old cookbook. I haven’t tried this method yet, but it doesn’t require a specific “coffee maker”. When you’re on a tight budget, that’s a big deal.
Measure 2 level tablespoons of regular or coarse grind coffee into the pot for each measuring cup (8 oz) of water. To 5 or 6 tablespoons of coffee, stir in about ½ tablespoon of beaten egg or egg white, or add the inner linings from 2 eggshells. Pour on the required amount of boiling water, cover and bring to a boil. Remove from heat immediately and let stand on the back of the stove 4 or 5 minutes before pouring.
One day we’ll try this recipe, if you do, let me know how it worked out for you.
I love coffee.
One of the challenges facing us is the high cost of good coffee. Now, those of you who don’t drink coffee might say, “So stop drinking it.” Well, that’s much easier said than done. Although I have gone for months, even years, without drinking coffee, I’m much happier when I have my morning cup(s) of joe.
Aside from the cost, I really would prefer that the farmers who grow the coffee make a fair wage and that the coffee is organically grown. So we looked for fair trade, organic coffee and found that it’s fairly pricey, let’s say $10 to $12 for 12 oz. roasted. I’d heard that green coffee stores well, and when freshly roasted is superior in flavor to anything else.
A quick web search turned up the Seven Bridges Cooperative, www.breworganic.com, which sells organic, fair trade green coffee, organic beer brewing supplies, and paraphernalia for roasting and brewing. (There are others, but this is the one I've used.) They also provide instructions for roasting and brewing, which was incredibly helpful. I just wasn’t into buying yet another electric contraption, so an automatic coffee roaster was right off my list. But it’s possible to roast coffee by parching the beans in a cast iron skillet.
We buy 25 pounds of coffee at a time, which for us is a six month supply. Including shipping the cost for the green coffee works out to $6 per pound - a significant savings for us.
The instructions on the Seven Bridges website said that skillet roasting would be a smoky process and they were right. You definitely want a well-ventilated kitchen far from the nearest smoke detector to do this job. The process takes longer than you might think, and uses quite a bit of energy. Stacking this job with several others on a wood fired range reduces our task specific energy usage. We know the beans are fully roasted when the splits of the beans turn completely dark. In order to keep the task manageable, but still have freshly roasted coffee, we roast about a week’s supply at a time.
Once the coffee is roasted the real fun begins, making and drinking a great cuppa. Initially, we used an automatic drip coffee maker, but again this is a separate use of a non-renewable energy source. Plus, drip coffee isn’t all that great anyway. Since the wood stove is hot for breakfast and baking, we boil water in a kettle and pour it over the freshly roasted and ground coffee in a French press. This produces the best tasting coffee I’ve ever had.
Of course, once you have a really good cup of coffee, are you going to put a powdered non-dairy creamer in it? No, no, hell no! We carefully pour the cream off the top of milk provided by Beauty, our Jersey cow. Real coffee and real cream, yum.
We each get two very good cups from our French press, then if we still want more coffee we make a ‘re-tread’ pot by un-pressing the coffee grounds and pouring in more hot water. The ‘re-tread’ is nowhere near as good as the first two cups but still is far better than most of the coffee you can buy ready brewed.
Here’s another recipe for brewing coffee from my Mom’s old cookbook. I haven’t tried this method yet, but it doesn’t require a specific “coffee maker”. When you’re on a tight budget, that’s a big deal.
Measure 2 level tablespoons of regular or coarse grind coffee into the pot for each measuring cup (8 oz) of water. To 5 or 6 tablespoons of coffee, stir in about ½ tablespoon of beaten egg or egg white, or add the inner linings from 2 eggshells. Pour on the required amount of boiling water, cover and bring to a boil. Remove from heat immediately and let stand on the back of the stove 4 or 5 minutes before pouring.
One day we’ll try this recipe, if you do, let me know how it worked out for you.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Re-Purposing Stuff
As we economize, lots of things get sold and others get re-purposed. Generally, if we don't use it anymore or can't afford to keep it we'll sell it if the market will pay a good price. In the case of bicycles, the resale value is extremely low compared to the purchase price unless it's a "collectible". In this economy, and in the future, I see the number of collectors and "collectibles" declining significantly.
Way back when, in my dissipative youth, I was an avid recreational bicyclist. During that time I fell in love with the high technology of a full suspension mountain bike, namely a Cannondale Super-V 1000, which I purchased just as soon as it was available. That was the fall of 1993 or 1994, can’t remember exactly which. So for several years I had lots of fun (well worth the purchase price to tell you the truth) riding off road trails in Michigan and Colorado. In time other priorities came into play, namely a young family, and the Cannondale was hung up in the barn to collect dust. Every time I really looked at it I promised myself that one day I’d ride it again just for fun.
Well, that was then. About a month or so ago my brother asked me to go along with him to a local recreational trail and ride bikes. When I initially resisted, my wife convinced me to go along, because I really needed the break anyway. So, the bike came down, I tuned it up and got ready to go. But, my brother came down with a cold and cancelled out. Still, the bike was already to go and I had a fence to repair in the north pasture (not a long walk, but I walk a lot everyday as it is) so I rode the darn thing up there and back. Golly, it was still fun.
Now that we’re well into autumn, the forage for the animals has slowed down to where we need to supplement their diet with hay. The catch is, the hay is strategically placed near their separate winter pastures and I’ve only got one pitch fork. With the help of a couple of rubber bands, I’ve put the funky bar ends on the Cannondale to use as a rack to carry the pitch fork from hay bale to hay bale. So, until we get some pretty deep snow, giving the animals hay will be quick, easy, and fun.
I’m sure the designers didn’t have this in mind at all.
Way back when, in my dissipative youth, I was an avid recreational bicyclist. During that time I fell in love with the high technology of a full suspension mountain bike, namely a Cannondale Super-V 1000, which I purchased just as soon as it was available. That was the fall of 1993 or 1994, can’t remember exactly which. So for several years I had lots of fun (well worth the purchase price to tell you the truth) riding off road trails in Michigan and Colorado. In time other priorities came into play, namely a young family, and the Cannondale was hung up in the barn to collect dust. Every time I really looked at it I promised myself that one day I’d ride it again just for fun.
Well, that was then. About a month or so ago my brother asked me to go along with him to a local recreational trail and ride bikes. When I initially resisted, my wife convinced me to go along, because I really needed the break anyway. So, the bike came down, I tuned it up and got ready to go. But, my brother came down with a cold and cancelled out. Still, the bike was already to go and I had a fence to repair in the north pasture (not a long walk, but I walk a lot everyday as it is) so I rode the darn thing up there and back. Golly, it was still fun.
Now that we’re well into autumn, the forage for the animals has slowed down to where we need to supplement their diet with hay. The catch is, the hay is strategically placed near their separate winter pastures and I’ve only got one pitch fork. With the help of a couple of rubber bands, I’ve put the funky bar ends on the Cannondale to use as a rack to carry the pitch fork from hay bale to hay bale. So, until we get some pretty deep snow, giving the animals hay will be quick, easy, and fun.
I’m sure the designers didn’t have this in mind at all.
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| From Atlantis |
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| From Atlantis |
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Gardening in a glacial moraine
Our landscape was created by the most recent glaciation. What this means for a gardener is learning how to deal with lots and lots of stones. I've already mentioned the bumper harvest of stones that I had while digging for potatoes, but I was only digging in the topsoil. The subsoil can be even stonier.
While double digging the little 3 ft square patches in my greenhouse, I kept one 5 gallon pail nearby for organic matter to be thrown on the compost pile. Another 5 gallon pail was nearby for the stones. Typically, I filled the stone pail halfway from one of the patches:
For those unfamiliar with the term, double digging requires removing a layer of topsoil then loosening the subsoil with a spading fork or similar tool. The topsoil is ultimately put back on top of the subsoil. (For a really good description of how to double dig, read "Grow More Vegetables..." by John Jeavons.)
So far so good, but there's a little challenge in a glacial moraine for the avid double digger. Namely lots of stones. The stones will be particularly challenging if the subsoil is seriously compacted. The spading fork will not do the job. I found that a six foot digging par (one long heavy piece of steel) was extremely helpful in loosening the soil before applying the spading fork. Additionally, it was helpful in removing stones like this one:
Good luck as you prepare for the next growing season!
While double digging the little 3 ft square patches in my greenhouse, I kept one 5 gallon pail nearby for organic matter to be thrown on the compost pile. Another 5 gallon pail was nearby for the stones. Typically, I filled the stone pail halfway from one of the patches:
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| From Greenhouse |
For those unfamiliar with the term, double digging requires removing a layer of topsoil then loosening the subsoil with a spading fork or similar tool. The topsoil is ultimately put back on top of the subsoil. (For a really good description of how to double dig, read "Grow More Vegetables..." by John Jeavons.)
So far so good, but there's a little challenge in a glacial moraine for the avid double digger. Namely lots of stones. The stones will be particularly challenging if the subsoil is seriously compacted. The spading fork will not do the job. I found that a six foot digging par (one long heavy piece of steel) was extremely helpful in loosening the soil before applying the spading fork. Additionally, it was helpful in removing stones like this one:
 |
| From Greenhouse |
 |
| From Greenhouse |
Good luck as you prepare for the next growing season!
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