By Josh Volk

Originally published in the September 2020 Growing for Market magazine

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.   

I had been primed for this one by another discussion on favorite harvest knives I had seen a few days prior in one of the farmer groups on Facebook. More than a decade ago a farmer friend of mine gifted me a Morakniv which came with a fantastic stiff plastic sheath that works really well and can be run through a dishwasher and that knife, because of its sheath, has been my everyday harvest knife ever since. Up to that point I was using a lettuce knife for most harvest and a No.8 Opinel for summer squash and other odd jobs like cutting twine. The Morakniv is so easy to keep handy on my tool belt that I gave up on the other two.

I’m getting a little sidetracked here, but I’ll come back to the magnets in a minute. The Morakniv model I was gifted is now called the “Comfort”. It’s a great all around utility knife and I love the edge I can get on its carbon steel blade with a simple pocket stone, but the blade is a little thicker than I like so the knife I use for almost all harvest and everything else on the farm is now called a “Fishing Comfort Fillet 090” and it has a thinner, stainless blade (1.5mm instead of 2.5mm). The stainless doesn’t sharpen as easily but all around it works better for me. Morakniv also makes a knife called the “Flex” which has a slightly different handle but the same blade and sheath. I love this knife mostly for its sheath and comfortable handle, but I do miss the larger blade on my old carbon steel lettuce knife for harvesting crops like lettuce and cabbage and trimming leeks.

Getting back to the magnets, in Kat’s post she wrote, “Ever since Victorinox stopped making the removable inserts in their sheaths it’s been impossible to keep the sheath clean or anywhere close to sanitary, this eliminates that problem, but keeps your harvest knife right by your side during harvest.” That was pretty much the same reason I gave up the lettuce knife and the truth is that even though you can run the Morakniv sheath through the dishwasher, it still gets a bit gunked up.

The magnet she’s using is a Neodymium rectangular mounting magnet that’s about 2.5 inches long with two screw holes in it and has a holding strength of over 66 pounds. She’s only been using it for a short time but she told me that her first attempt was with a significantly weaker magnet from the hardware store and it definitely did not work. I suspect that a smaller Neodymium magnet might also work. Even a 1.5 inch version has over 27 pounds of holding strength (depending on the grade). They are mostly using Victorinox serrated blade knives with a 4-inch blade and rounded tips. Snagging while carrying the knives hasn’t been a problem yet.

When I talked to Kat, she had a few additional notes. She puts the magnet in her pocket but suggested the coin pocket so that it doesn’t slip down too far when the knife isn’t attached. Noting that you could really put it anywhere she told me a friend of hers had tried it in her bra with success. When they’re done with their knives the magnet can be used to hang the knife on any steel surface – including the side of the harvest truck. She did note that the magnet is strong enough that if she walks too close to the truck the magnet will stick her to the side of the truck.

There are some safety considerations with such strong magnets and some of those come with the magnet – like not using it near a pacemaker – but others are somewhat less obvious like the possibility of two magnets in close proximity coming together with enough speed or force to shatter the magnet itself or even break bones. Kat mentioned the possibility that it might also interact with cell phones negatively but I wasn’t able to find anything definitive online and she hasn’t had a problem, yet.

With those caveats in mind I’m excited to get myself a couple of magnets and see if I can find a way to carry my old lettuce knife cleanly into the field again.

Please keep the great tool ideas coming by tagging your photos with the #toolsforgrowingformarket hashtag on Facebook and Instagram. You might get lucky and get picked to be featured here, but even if you’re not think of all the other farmers who will get to see your favorite tools. And go search the hashtag, there are close to 100 tools tagged and more showing up all the time!

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.