Post your favorite farm tool using #toolsforgrowingformarket. If author Josh Volk picks your tool, you win a $50 tool gift certificate and a Full Access sub to GFM.
This article originally appeared in the April 2020 issue of Growing for Market Magazine.
Rosie Sweetman, the Queen of Little Wings Farm near Eugene, Oregon, submitted this month’s selection and her caption was so good I’m just going to copy it here (minus the excellent use of emoticons that you’ll have to go to Instagram to see):
"Meet Googly Eyed Gilham: winner of the tool of the year award! Over many years of farming for others I always felt like communication on farms could be better. So many mistakes, misunderstandings, wasted time wandering around looking for someone or something could have been fixed with the simple walkie talkie, worth its weight in gold. This past year we bought one for each of our crew and extra backups."
"There were no questions that went unanswered, no searching for a tool that someone moved, no relying on cellphones that are impossible to answer with wet muddy paws and no feeling alone in the back-40 because you are always connected with your crew! Not only did this tool save us time, labor, frustration, and miscommunication...it is also fun! Trying out many types we landed on these from REI (not Amazon). $40 for a 2pack w/ 3 year warranty. They are small, light weight, waterproof, bright orange, & good battery w/charging stations. If you don’t have em, get em! If you got em, holler!"
(Note: Midland categorizes these radios as water resistant, not waterproof. Rosie says they’ve sprayed them off when they’ve gotten super muddy and used them in the rain without problems.)
Googly Eyed Gilham on the job at Little Wings Farm near Eugene, Oregon.
Photo courtesy of the author.
To get a little more context on why radios work so well for their farm I talked to Rosie and here’s some of what she told me. Little Wings Farm is mostly flat, and maybe a mile from corner to corner with trees and buildings scattered throughout. Their radios, with a little spottiness, will reach each other from the far corners, but almost always they’re using them at a shorter than maximum range. The farm crew is just four to five employees plus the two owners during peak season so often folks are sent off solo and one of her biggest points was that, especially for newer workers, it’s huge for both her as a manager, and them as workers, when they can go do jobs away from the rest of the crew but still be able to check in with questions.
On top of that they basically all use the same channel all of the time which means that everyone gets to hear what everyone else’s questions are, and what the answers are. That keeps everyone learning and informed, but also feeling like they’re always connected with the rest of the crew even when they’re not physically in the same part of the farm. Last minute changes to priorities are easy to transmit to everyone on the crew at any point during the day regardless of where they are.
Rosie says her ideal radio to farm worker ratio is a little more than 1 radio per worker. Everyone carries one, and it’s nice to have a backup in case one goes missing or someone forgets to put one on the charger overnight. She and her partner keep one charger at home for their own radios. The rest of the chargers sit in the farm common area near the time sheets that everyone fills out when they first get to the farm and right before they leave at the end of the day.
Fun is an important component of Little Wings Farm and to increase the fun factor everyone has a radio “handle” on the farm and some of the radios have been named as well. Googly Eyes Gilham is the one with Googly Eyes, Silent Bob is the one with the quiet ringer.
Thanks to everyone who continues to share their favorite tools by using the hashtag #toolsforgrowingformarket and by sending in photos. There are always more good ones posted than I have space for here so I encourage you to remember to tag your photos when you post to social media, and to follow the hashtag to see what other folks are posting. Just as one example, in addition to my own germination chamber, there are three other designs that look great posted on Instagram with the hashtag. Keep ‘em coming!
Josh Volk farms in Portland, Oregon, and does consulting and education under the name Slow Hand Farm. He is the author of the book Compact Farms: 15 Proven Plans for Market Farms on 5 Acres or Less, available from Growing for Market. He can be found at SlowHandFarm.com.
When I saw this tool I knew the exact need that inspired its creation and I loved seeing the abundant comments from other farmers around the world who had also created their own versions, born of that same common need. Nat Wiseman from Village Greens of Willunga Creek near Adelaide in southern Australia posted a very simple and relatively quick fix to the problem of laying drip lines in garlic after the canopy has already filled in.
Megan French from Boundless Farmstead near Bend, Oregon, posted these dibblers she built on Instagram and reminded me that I need to get my act together. On their farm they’re typically seeding 30 to 100 trays per week with a vacuum seeder. To get evenly dibbled holes before making the dibbler boards they were using a single bolt with a nut and washer to set the depth. One. Cell. At. A. Time. Which understandably was slow.
We’re very excited to tell you about a new feature in GFM. As farmers you are out there jury-rigging, farm-hacking, adapting and making new tools. We want to ask you to post or send photos of your tool and equipment ideas that would be useful to fellow farmers.
Another simple and relatively inexpensive tool drew me in on social media this month – a magnet in the place of a knife sheath submitted by Kat Johnson, the Produce Manager at Fields Edge Farm in Floyd, Virginia.
Until two years ago I was germinating all seedlings in greenhouses using almost exclusively bottom heat from electric heat mats. At my current farm we only had space for about 8-10 trays on our two mats and we definitely noticed differences in the germination (and presumably the heat the mats were providing) on the edges of our trays.
Since it’s the beginning of the year I’m sure lots of you are just about to start filling your greenhouses back up with seedlings in flats, plug trays, soil blocks and nursery pots, just as I am. If you’re not already using automatic water in your greenhouse, I’d encourage you to go check the archives for “Water Greenhouse Plants Automatically” that ran in the January 2010 issue, and I’ll give an update here on the evolution of my greenhouse sprinkler system, and what I’ve ultimately been using for at least the last eight years with good success and next to no problems.
This month’s submission is from Dogpatch Urban Gardens in Iowa and it’s a simple one – a grabber being used to reach Tomahooks obviating the need for a ladder. It’s quite possible that many of you have already thought of this, but I had never seen this before. I love the idea and I don’t even use hooks…but I might after seeing this.
By passion and necessity, farmers are natural innovators. The consolidation in agriculture has led to manufacturers focusing on larger scale tools and equipment, leaving smaller and mid-scale farmers to tinker and “farm hack” old tools to make things work for new systems. Sometimes these projects come together perfectly; as we use welders, carpentry, and possibly too much duct tape (or used greenhouse plastic, used drip tape, etc.) to create the odd looking but highly functional tool. 
