My Favourite Smallholding Tools

It seems to be the right time to write an article about the tools that I use most often, here at the Sustainable Smallholding. I get the feeling that I’m being prompted somewhat, as there have been a number of small events related to tools, that have occurred recently. First of all, after writing a review about my Copper Spade, I had a very nice call from Jane at Implementations thanking me for the review, and asking for permission to link to the review from their site. Sadly, she studiously ignored my unsubtle hint that I would be happy to review more tools, if they sent them. You can’t win them all. Next I got a little worked up by a tool article in Country Smallholding, which was overwhelmingly focussed on power tools and machinery. I also found two decent video clips whilst researching/searching for a tool to harvest bamboo, which I thought that you might find interesting, Lastly, I got a call from a friend who said that he was suffering from ‘Tool Envy’, after reading about my spade. So this one is for you Mark.

First of all, I wanted to show you this clip. If, like me, you’re a lover of hand tools, I’m sure that you’ll want a shop like this near you.

It was interesting to consider the concept of the tool setting limits on what you can do. This has occurred to me whilst scything, as there is a limit to the amount of grass that can be mown in a day, and consequently, the availability of Winter food (hay), which will then limit the numberof animals that can be kept alive. I guess that the tool also sets limits to consumption. If you think about carpentry, without power tools, less wood would be processed in a set time, and less timber could be harvested without the massive machines that are used.

My Favourite Tools

In the clip, the owner says that their flagship product is the Austrian Scythe, and this is also my first recommendation. You may not be aware that I’m one of the most experienced proponents of the Austrian Scythe in. I run scything courses here in Lincolnshire, and teach at the West Country Scything Festival each year. The scythe was probably the most influential tool that I have used, in as much as it demonstrated that I didn’t need to rely on machinery. Prior to using a scythe, I ran an old tractor, to cut grass. It was dirty, noisy, always needed attention, and I hated it. After my first Summer with the scythe, and mowing three acres of grass, the tractor went, and I started to realise that not only did the scythe work, but it was quiet, peaceful, efficient, and it felt right. I now no longer use a strimmer, and would get rid of the lawn mower, if I was allowed. One day soon…….

Here is a clip showing somebody who is better than me, using an Austrian Scythe. There is no soundtrack.

Please don’t feel disheartened if she’s better than you, she has been scything for years. Her father is Peter Vido, and he has helped to introduce the use of the Austrian scythe into this country, and many others. There is a link to his website on the blogroll. For more scything related stuff, feel free to look at my scything blog

here

The second tool that I would recomend, is the Ibis Cultivator. This tool, available from the Organic Gardening Catalogue, is perfect for vegetable growing on raised beds. There is a picture of it on their website

here

The picture doesn’t do it justice. Not only is it a thing of beauty, but I use it for almost every job in the vegetable garden, including opening/marking rows for seeds or plants, breaking clods, and light weeding. More importantly, like all well designed tools, I like using it. This links in with another comment made on the video clip, which is that many hand tools are not really up to doing the job that they are used for. With mass production, and less skill in using hand tools, many of us don’t even know when a tool is not working efficiently, until we find a better example. To that end, when we find something that is exceptionally good, we need to tell people.

A new addition to my list of favourites is my copper shovel. As I have reviewed it recently, I won’t say much more about it, except that now I wish that I had bought one, when I first came across it, and not waited so long. It may be that a steel version of a similar pattern would also work well.

Next tool on my list is a billhook. Mine is made by Stihl, and is OK, but a good friend of mine found a beauty at a car boot sale (hi Alex), and I’m hoping that he might come across another. The Green Shopping Catalogue recommend the Morris billhook, which you can see at the bottom of the page of the next link.

here

I’ve not used one, but it’s on my wish list. My own billhook gets used every Winter, to remove small branches.We put these into bags and use it as kindling, and to heat up the bread oven. Often, with chainsaw hedge work, this gets burnt on site. Not only is that wasteful, but you then need to do more work splitting logs down to make kindling. On a similar note, I expect to use a billhook to harvest coppice wood, as my trees grow. For thicker branches, I use a curved saw. Mine is made by Silky, and is excellent. I cut trunks and branches up to about eight inches thick with it. Any larger than that and I’m forced to use a chainsaw. I’m not keen on using a chainsaw, but it works. I find that it tends to make me harvest too much wood to process in a single day, which sometimes leads to piles of wood laying around waiting for it to come to the top of my ‘to do’ list. I hope that as I get my trees planted, and start harvesting wood, that I can stick to the hand tools, by not allowing the trees to grow too large. The only problem that I can see with the curved hand saw, is that I cannot sharpen it. I don’t even know if it’s possible to sharpen, them. In the long term, this is probably not sustainable. At least with a machete/billhook, sharpening is easy.

Other Essential Tools

Sticking to the woodsman type tools for a moment, you need a splitting maul, and a small hatchet, for processing large and small logs into firewood. I have a Gransfors Bruks splitting maul, which is hidden away so that my wife cannot use it. It’s being kept in reserve. I would like to try one of their little hatchets, but our current one works well, but needs to be sharpened.

For vegetable growing, the only other tools that I use regularly are a push hoe, for clearing paths, and a trowel, for the weeding  jobs that the cultivator doesn’t manage. I use a muckfork and/or a pitchfork, for cleaning out the ducks,and turning the compost heaps.

I have done quite a bit of fencing, so have many of the tools needed, but for most smallholders, it would probably be more economical to hire them as needed, or to borrow them from a friend.

Tools that I want to Try

Of the tools that I’d like to try a few stand out. There is a curved Japanese serrated sickle, which can be used for pruning, harvesting bamboo etc. This video clip shows it in use.

I’ve seen examples in both of the catalogues that I’ve provided links to, plus Axminster Power Tools, and some Bonsai sites. Sadly there is no way to compare the qualityof them, and so I’m reluctant to part with any money. If any of you have one, and can recommend a supplier, please let me know by adding a comment. Implementations, who sell the copper tools, sell a type of sickle. So I asked if it would be suitable for bamboo. They suggested a copper machete, which the makers have just designed. That would be interesting to see.

Sticking to the oriental theme, another friend uses a hori hori, which is Japanese trowel, which is like a knife. You can see one by using the link below. There’s also a very cheap version of the sickle which I wrote about above.

here

There’s a more expensive one here, with no way of assessing the quality.

link

The Bare Essentials

There are plenty of other tools that earn their place here, but I think that it would be nice to pare them down to the essentials. Perhaps I should put allof the tools in a shed, and each time that I use a tool, move it to another place. At the end of a year, perhaps two, I would be able to see which ones were earning their keep, and which should be passed on to somebody else.

Well that’s my list, but what’s on yours? What tools couldn’t you do without?

Please note that I will be adding some picures to this post over the next few days, so please come back and check them out.

All of the best

Deano

2 thoughts on “My Favourite Smallholding Tools

    1. Deano Post author

      Hi Pakka

      I’m slowly trying out tools, as and when I can afford them, and will keep people informed about how I get on.

      Thanks for commenting

      Deano

      Reply

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