What would you do if there's no petroleum based fuels available, and electricity no longer flows, yet you need to prepare a garden bed?
Well, as a limited experiment, we're attempting to turn over our garden using old-fashioned tools. Now our garden has been rototilled previously using a tractor and later an electric rototiller, earlier in the spring. However, now we're adding soil amendments, i.e., natural fertilizer(animal manure), and minerals such as dolomite (lime). We're using a wheel hoe that has five finger harrow attachment, and a four tined broadfork. Our garden is about three quarters planted already, and we've used the wheel hoe for most of the bed preparation. In my estimation, the wheel hoe worked as quickly as our electric rototiller, though it required more physical effort. I could vary the depth of harrow penetration by pushing down more forcefully on the handlebars of the wheel hoe. I prepped probably 750-800 sq ft of the garden so far. Results have been positive thus far, as we did some soil preparation on Tuesday, and we've already got okra and zucchini plants popping out on Friday. i intend to use the wheel hoe on all the garden paths, to control weeds, throughout the summer.
Tomorrow, we'll be adding the soil amendments to the remaining un-planted garden area, using the broadfork, to ensure the new nutrients get deep into the existing soil. The wheel hoe will be used for final soil preparation.
I thought it would be a good idea to try these techniques while we still have a supermarket safety net. At this point, it looks like a workable solution for a family garden. The same equipment could be used for a limited market garden; the farmer would need to be in good shape and he/she would need to be prepared for some long days. The broadfork is a heavy implement, on the order of 20-25 pounds, and using it is a very physical activity.
For the most part, this experiment has been a non-event, except for the additional physical activity. The final soil preparation results have been similar to a traditional rototiller, yet it has less impact on soil biomes. We're not organic gardeners, but we do try to avoid un-needed chemicals in our gardens, and this non-mechanized tilling method does seem to work well in our situation. We'll continue the experiment, for now.
