Over the past two weeks we prepared the land in the Kentucky State University Energy Farm Study for planting. We started with a freshly-cut hay field that has grown an alfalfa and grass mixture for the past three years. It is rich in organic matter and naturally-fixed nitrogen, so we chose not to add additional fertilizer in the first year of the study. The soil preparation process differed between our three production systems:

1. Biointensive plots were cleared with a hoe, then double dug with a spade, spading fork, and broadfork. All labor was done by hand over the course of a week.
   
   
2. Market garden plots were prepared with two passes of a roto-tiller attached to a 13 hp BCS 852 walk-behind tractor, fueled by gasoline. The roto-tiller passes were spaced two weeks apart to allow sod to decompose after the initial cultivation.
   
   
3. Small farm plots were prepared with a single pass of a moldboard plow attached to an 89 hp John Deere 5520 tractor, fueled by diesel. The plow was followed, two weeks later, with two passes of a roto-tiller, pulled by the same tractor.
   
   

The following charts show the amount of labor and energy used to complete the soil preparation process at each of the three farm scales. Labor use is in minutes per square meter of land. Energy use is in megajoules per square meter of land (1 megajoule = 239 food calories). Error bars show the standard error, which is a measure of the variability between plots that were treated the same way.

The small farm plots cover about 40 times as much land as the biointensive plots, and 6.5 times as much as the market garden plots. (A previous blog post showed relative plot size on an aerial photograph of the site.)

We spent 20 hours clearing sod and double digging the biointensive plots, 2.5 hours using the walk-behind tractor in the market garden plots, and 3.0 hours on the 4-wheeled tractor in the small farm plots. The walk-behind tractor consumed 3.7 liters (1.0 gallon) of gasoline and the 4-wheeled tractor consumed 34.5 liters (9.1 gallons) of diesel fuel.

Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program. He thanks Brian Geier, John Rodgers, Hank Schweickart and Tony Silvernail for their help with preparing the land for planting.

Last year we developed a toolset that allowed us to clear an
abandoned baseball field of perennial sod and convert it into a vegetable
producing mini-farm. This petrol-free toolset included a low-wheel cultivator made by Glaser
and a two-foot wide broadfork. It is quite likely that we used these tools
in a more rigorous way then they were intended, (opening new land instead of
working pre-established vegetable beds), yet the tools withstood hours of work
with only a handful of needed repairs. After last year’s experience we consider the combination of the broadfork and the low-wheel cultivator to be an appropriate
toolset for small-scale vegetable cultivation because they efficiently use manual
labor in place of fossil fuel powered equipment to prepare vegetable beds.

This blog will revisit our method for preparing vegetable beds
in light of the fact that we are no longer fighting against tough perennial sod,
and instead, we are removing our over-winter cover crops.

Step 1: Removing Cover Crop

We use a sharp scythe to cut the cover crop off as low to
the ground as possible. Once the crop has fallen we rake up the remains and
cart it off as a nitrogen input to our compost piles. In the earliest part of spring,
we are careful to remove only the cover-crop from the vegetable beds that we immediately
plan to prepare for transplant or direct seeding. This allows the other areas
of cover crop to continue growing as much as possible in the increased
temperatures and daylight hours of spring.

Jason Using Sharp Scythe to Clear Cover Crop

Cover Crop Cut Close to the Ground With Scythe

Step 2: Breaking Ground

After the cover crop has been removed we are left with the
gentle stubble of annual cereals and legumes. We have noticed that the loam soil is
quite soft and easy to work with, and we attribute this to the fact the area we are working was established last year. A prime consideration at this stage of bed preparation
is soil moisture. We want to be careful not to work the soil too wet or we will
remove an unnecessary amount of soil as we cut through the stubble of the annual
cover crops.

Low Wheel Cultivator Cutting Into Soil

Step 3: Loosening the Bed

After the stubble of the previous crop has been broken free
from the soil, the next step is to broadfork the soil. The broadfork is two
feet wide and includes five tines that sink into the soil about ten inches. It
is amazing how much easier it is to broadfork the soil this season than it was
last year. We have changed the width of our beds this year from 5-foot wide beds to
4-foot wide beds. This change has put us into some areas of soil that is
similar to last year when we had to combat the sod. Pushing the broadfork into
the previously worked sections versus the reclaimed sod sections really shows
what one-years-worth of work accomplished for reducing compaction and improving
aeration. Again we want to be aware of soil moisture, so that we do not smear
wet soil together in the prying and lifting action of the broadfork.

Chris Sinking Broadfork into and Prying Down

Step 4: Cross-cut the sod and rake

After the bed has been forked, there are entire clumps that
have been lifted and are uneven. We use the low-wheel cultivator with a 3-tine cultivator attachment to
cross cut the bed and thereby remove the clumps. By the time we are finished with
cross cutting we have up to five inches of loose soil on the surface which
makes a good seedbed. It is also easy to transplant into the newly cross
cut bed. If we intend to seed the bed we rake the surface smooth and make sure
there is no trash that could interfere with the drill-seeder.

Jason Cross-Cutting Bed with Three-Tine Cultivator

We like this toolset because it clears an area of grass or
cover crop and produces a vegetable bed that is suitable for
direct seeding or transplant. In this method the soil remains loose and aerated
up to ten inches and it does not entail the soil disruption of double digging
or rototilling. By making sure to compost the soil and debris that is removed from
the area in which you intend to make a bed, you make a good step toward sustainable
soil management in which no soil is lost and on-site nutrients are cycled back
into the beds in the form of compost.

If you are curious you can click here to check out and contrast our
bed preparation method from last year.

Brookside Farm has accomplished an initial goal of getting
our veggies to young children and into a local institution! North Coast
Opportunities pre-school has agreed to purchase two shares from the CSA at
Brookside Farm. The kitchen staff is looking forward to utilizing fresh farm
produce and cooking according to the harvest season. It is exciting to see that there is demand
for our produce and the goods of a Relocalized food system.

View of North Coast Opportunities Preschool

To meet the demands of the CSA, we set to work preparing our
first beds in order to transplant spinach and lettuce and to direct seed
onions, beets, carrots, lettuce, and parsnips. We removed cover crops with a
scythe, broke the soil with the low-wheel cultivator, loosened the soil with
the broadfork, and cross cut a final time with the low-wheel cultivator in
order to ready vegetable beds. The following is the sowing dates and area for
the crops that we direct seeded.

Direct Seeding Beets by Hand

According to our planting schedule, March was slated to be one
of the most active months in the greenhouse. Lettuce, cabbage, chard, spinach,
kale, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and tomatillo were on the list of a
scheduled 1600 starts. Unfortunately, we had poor germination on many of the
starts that were seeded early in the month (kale, spinach, and cabbage). We
monitored the Max-Min thermometer in the greenhouse and were noticing overnight
lows in the 30 and daily highs in the 70’s. After considering what might have
led to the poor germination and we finally concluded that the average soil temperatures
and nighttime temperatures were too cold. We utilized the warming temperatures
toward the middle of March to catch-up on the plants that did not do so well
earlier in the month and continued to sow starts to remain on pace with our
greenhouse schedule. By the second week of the month we had sown our peppers
and tomatoes in David Drell’s greenhouse. David used electric heating mats to
secure sufficiently warm germination temperatures, and by the end of the month
we had excellent stands of little peppers and tomatoes awaiting transplant from
their seed-flats into four-inch pots. It was amazing to see the difference
between plants started with the heated soil mats and those that fended for
themselves in the early part of March.

Tomatoes and Peppers in Four-Inch Pots

This month we also began a relationship with a local welder
to make adjustments to our low-wheel cultivator and the broadfork. Last year we
had a terrible time shearing off
the bolt that connected the stirrup hoe implement to the low-wheel
cultivator. Kevin, at KLR welding, suggested that he weld a small plate near
the back of where the stirrup hoe connects to the frame. By adding the plate
excess and needless motion has been eliminated, the implement base remains
rigid, and we have significantly reduced the threat of shearing the bolt. We
are also asking Kevin to weld reinforced tines onto the broadfork. This should
make the tines sturdier and less apt to bend and break off as they did last
year.

Glaser Hoe with Metal Block to Limit Excess Movement

Broadfork with Reinforced Tines

Julian Darley has met with Steve Heckeroth to finalize
details related to repairing and testing one scratch-built electric tractor
(ET-7) and a post market modified tractor (ET-1). Post Carbon Institute
will fund the repairs of both electric tractors which will be used in Sonoma and Mendocino
counties. We are excited to continue to support the important work of Heckeroth
and his campaign to promote electric vehicles and a "solar economy".

In order to test and troubleshoot Heckeroth’s electric
tractor we plan to use ET-7 in Willits to convert pasture land to parcels ready
for annual cultivation. This tool is not only quiet and light on the environment
(little GHG emission), but also responds to the fact that extra land is almost
always needed for growing local biofuel or beasts of burden for agricultural labor
energy. Running on electricity this machine needs no extra land and is a great
demonstration of a technology adapted to a petroleum scarce future. Not only is
this tool appropriate because it averts the “food vs. fuel” dilemma but it also
allows people of all ages and body-types to cultivate large acreage without expending
enormous amounts of human energy. We are excited to demonstrate these tools and
will keep you updated as the projects unfold.

Jason Bradford taking ET-7 for a joyride

Steve Heckeroth (left) sits on ET-1

The figure below illustrates the way in which a common chipper/shredder can be converted into a small scale threshing machine. This conversion is 1 of 9 gifts to humanity from the work Allen Dong of I-Tech Designs: PO Box 413, Veneta, OR 97487. Allen Dong's Appropriate Technology for Small and Subsistence Farms is archived here on a UC Davis website.

This invention was declared public domain August 1994, and was demonstrated at the Washington State University Vancouver Research and Extension Center. Click here to check out the Washington State demonstration, complete with explanations.

In order to help salad greens store better after washing it is necessary to remove as much excess water as possible before placing them into cold storage. Without electricity at the site, I had fun trying to replace a "spin cycle" with a milk crate and some twine. I was trying to replicate the practice in which some small scale farmers wrap salad greens in a cloth blanket and placed them into an old wash machine on the spin cycle. They do this in order to fling extra water from the greens and allow them to be bagged or stored for later use and distribution. This is an important step in processing greens because the CSA subscriber or market does not want to pay for the excess water weight and the greens will wilt and become slimy if bagged wet.

Although this process works well on the very short term and small scale, it may be too dizzying to do constantly. If I find the time, it would be great to create a pedal-powered spinner to do the job.

20 LBS of Lettuce

Rinsed and Fluffy Greens

This blogcast shows the final passes on the sorghum section with the wheel hoe. After battling through the tall, thick sod we cleared all the material off the field and carted it to the compost area for future integration back onto the land. The final step is to loosen the top layer of soil in order to drill seed the sorghum.

It was much easier to make the second pass with the wheel hoe after the roots and grass had been removed. After making the second pass there was 2-3 inches of loose soil to plant in (just enough to disrupt remaining weeds and allow the seeder to pass smoothly). 2-3 inches is not too shallow because sorghum prefers a firm seed bed.

Click here to watch the blogcast of Chris using the wheel hoe to prepare the seedbed.

Sod Raked Into Rows to be Removed Before Making Final Pass With Wheel Hoe

Loading Up To Take Sod To Compost Section

Almost Finished Clearing Sod

The Sorghum Section Has Been Cleared!!

Huge Pile of Sod and Soil To Be Composted Later (In the Foreground is the Carbon-Compost Crop)

In this blogcast I demonstrate a new method that I have been using to cut the sod in the sorghum section. Humans typically produce an average of one tenth horsepower (0.1Hp) for the duration of a 10 hour day. I have been experimenting with method in which I can potentially exert more force over a shorter distance and then have a few moments of physical recovery before I use the tool again. To do this I push the wheel hoe through sections of about 5-6 feet wide. It takes about 5-10 seconds to pass through this section, and then I take a couple of steps back (rest) and repeat the task. I think that this method allows me to cut with more force and potentially cover more ground then my old tactic of simply walking in a straight line, exerting force in difficult 8 inch wide by 66ft long strips.

Click here to watch the demonstration of this alternate methodology.

The main farm job of this week (4/23-4/27) at the Willits Energy Farm was planting potatoes. Five beds were filled with 11 different varieties. Each bed was broken into three rows at about 18 inch spacing between rows and potatoes were planted within the rows at 9 inch spacing. This will be a good test to see how many potatoes can be expected at this planting density, (hopefully 1500 pounds or more). As explained in a previous blog, potatoes are an important crop because they are area efficient high calorie food source. Taking this into consideration I think it is safe to say that they are an energy crop for human power.

Potatoes are planted in furrows (mini-trenches) which have a mound of soil bordering the furrow. As the leaves of the potato break the surface of the soil, the soil that was removed from the furrow is placed around the green shoot. This process, called “hilling”, helps to encourage the growth of more tubers.

In more industrialized contexts, a farmer will use a tractor with a long “ripping-tooth” to create a furrow and hill. The farmer simply sinks the ripper down to the desired level and pulls it through the soil to prepare a potato bed. We are looking at accomplishing this task without complicated, petrol powered machinery, and are therefore using our developing toolset to accomplish the job. Our methodology is as follows.

1. The Glaser wheel-hoe to remove the top layer of sod from the bed, raked up the loose sod and carted it to the compost area.
2. The broadfork to help create furrows of about 9 inches. One person would put weight on the broadfork, pry, and break-free a chunk of soil. The other person would help roll the chunk out of the way to form the furrow and create a mound that will be later used to “hill” the potatoes.
3. After the row was “broadforked” one of us would use a typical garden fork to press deeper into the new furrow and loosen the soil. This gave us the opportunity to bury the potato about 9 inches from the top of the furrow and have a bit of loosened soil below the “seed”.
4. Finally, a hand trowel was used to make a hole in the loosened soil and bury the potato in the furrow. We covered the potato with a couple inches of soil.

The varieties of potatoes that were planted include:

• Desiree
• Huckleberry
• All Blue
• Caribe
• Yellow Fin
• Canela
• Norkotah
• Sangre
• Kennebuk
• French Fingerling
• Purple Peruvian
  

Line of Bed Ready to be Broadforked

Forking the Bed After Using the Broadfork

Sprouted Seed Potato

Placing the Potatoes in Row at 9 inch Spacing (Before Covering with Soil)

Three of Five Completed Rows of Potatoes

In their last meeting, the Willits City council decided that the city enter Stage 1 Water Rationing. The Little Lake Valley is experiencing a drought and is about 20 inches below average for precipitation in 2007. Since the reservoirs are at alarmingly low levels a Stage 1 Water Ration has been initiated. Stage 1 rationing is more or less a voluntary curtailment of water usage. Stage 2 is much more severe and mandates all watering of landscaping and gardens be discontinued. The recent Stage 1 declaration (and potential Stage 2 mandate) may prove to be an obstacle for the evolving mini-farm at Brookside Elementary and is an added incentive for us to drill a well sooner than later.

This type of predicament is not new-since there has been the possibility for irrigation there has been the fight for water and the rationing of scarce supplies. In the future I can even imagine that the energy cost of powering an irrigation system might become prohibitive for some. In this case, farmers have (and may choose) to turn to a dry-land farming method which relies on the natural patterns of rain to provide moisture for germination and the hope that a couple of later storms arrive to secure early plant growth. In addition, proper selection of drought tolerant crops is a key consideration in this type of agricultural system.

At the Willits Energy Farm we are growing 2880 Sq Ft of legume and cereal crops. These crops are being grown dry-land and will eventually be used for compost and animal feed. I must admit that this is not a true dry-land crop because we watered the area after drill seeding it with the Earthway seeder. The water was minimal, as we simply added moisture to the soil to aid germination of the seeds-an impatient simulation of a moderate March rain two days after sowing. Who knows, if this wasn’t a “drought” year we might have actually received precipitation! After this initial watering we have not added any more water and are allowing nature to provide the rest. For the last couple of weeks the plants have been in a crucial stage of development where moisture helps establish them and provides the early growth that will be useful as the plant grows taller and produces seed heads.

On Wednesday and Friday we received some precipitation. Before the rain on Friday we replaced the 1204 Sq Ft area of Hard Red Spring Wheat (which failed to establish itself) with Crimson Clover. The clover is an example of sowing dry-land crops ahead of anticipated rain. We will see if the 0.4 inches of rain in the last two days is enough to get the clover germinating and the spring grains growing strong.

Dry-Land Legumes and Cereal Crops After the Rain

Cover Crop of AC Baton Oats

A "Before" Shot in November of Cover Crop in the Compacted Infield

An "After" Shot of Infield Cover Crop that Remained Over-winter