a new old tool for digging raised beds, or, finding what you need in the past

Some context: my partner and I rented a 30'x30' community garden this year since we live in a duplex with no space for a garden. To my knowledge the space has never been cultivated before and had not been mowed once in the last year, so it was overgrown with woody-stemmed weeds and dense grass when we got it. We also were not able to start renting until about a month or so before we needed to start planting. I've established new gardens with sheet mulch before, but I was worried about not having enough time in this case, and I don't have a good source of sheet mulching material for that much space besides. I didn't want to use machinery because I'm a Luddite. I've previously dug new gardens with a broadfork, mattock, shovel, and hoe, but that was pretty strenuous work and although I hate myself and deserve to suffer, this time I wanted to find an easier solution.

I did some reading about the methods of spade cultivation in the UK and Ireland, whereby variations of a lazy bed were dug by cutting and flipping rectangular patches of sod. I know the lazy bed technique for making raised beds is not unheard of in the permaculture world, but the tools that were historically used for this generally seem less well-known. There is a whole host of different cultivating spades (perhaps better described as foot plows, since they are used for paring and turning rather than digging) and regional variations thereof, but the most common in the border region between modern-day Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is the McMahon and elsewhere in Ireland the loy.

Now, I live in the eastern United States and it is impossible to find either of these tools here, for obvious reasons. There is a single company in the UK that still sells McMahons and there are several loy builders in Ireland, but I imagine shipping to the US is prohibitively expensive if anyone is even willing to send one in the first place. I don't doubt that you can find either one used across the pond, but again obviously not here. Since I lack any metalworking skills whatsoever and am too lazy/stupid to learn, I custom ordered a McMahon from a tool maker here in the US using measurements taken from a McMahon found in Co. Leitrim that I got from an article in an archaeological journal. A quick look on YouTube will find a lot of people digging lazy beds on a garden scale with conventional long-handled shovels, but historically Irish farmers dug much larger tracts with cultivating spades even when they had access to a typical shovel (according to one book, even as recently in the 1940s in Co. Fermanagh, most farms up to 10 acres were cultivated entirely with spades). My plot falls squarely into the small-ish garden size, but I figured that if Irish farmers continued to use cultivating spades then they may be better suited to the task than a typical shovel.

After having used a McMahon to dig lazy beds in my garden, I have to say I am very impressed at how well-suited it is to the task. Digging the entire garden took about two mornings' worth of work, and although it was time-consuming it was not physically that strenuous. The combination of long handle and long, bent blade gives significant leverage allowing you to undercut and flip sods comparatively easily with a straight back, and the narrow blade allows you to cut through even very dense root mats without much force. I've attached some pictures of the plot before and after, the first bed with the first row of sods flipped and the second row of sods flipped, and some close ups of the first row of sods for the last bed.

I've also been experimenting with loy handles and hope to soon have a blade made for one. Further down the line I also hope to experiment with a cas-chrom (a possible development of the Scottish equivalent of the loy, common in the Hebrides, Skye, and western Highlands, built to allow one user to plow as well as lever rocks out of the ground with a single tool).

Has anyone else had an experience like this, where you find an old (maybe nearly-forgotten, or unheard-of in your region) piece of technology that fills a particular niche well? I'd love to hear others' experiences finding inspiration for appropriate technology in the historical record or local tradition.

Very impressive! Lots of work.

I use mainly a spade for my gardening (and also a heavy hoe), but it's a straight blade, shorter handle. Not as apt as the one you show. I have to do a fair bit of stooping.

Currently it's about 3000 square feet. It was originally about half that, and it was plowed for me originally. Since then I have been adding a few feet every year along one edge to expand gradually. The spade is good for turning sod. No plow since about 2015, so all spade and hoe. Spade is better than hoe.

Thom Bri wrote:Very impressive! Lots of work.

I use mainly a spade for my gardening (and also a heavy hoe), but it's a straight blade, shorter handle. Not as apt as the one you show. I have to do a fair bit of stooping.

Currently it's about 3000 square feet. It was originally about half that, and it was plowed for me originally. Since then I have been adding a few feet every year along one edge to expand gradually. The spade is good for turning sod. No plow since about 2015, so all spade and hoe. Spade is better than hoe.

That's a pretty substantial amount of space to have turned over! My experience using a short handle spade and eye hoe to establish garden space in the past have been consistent with what you say. I've often wondered if a forked hoe, like a magna graecia or canterbury hoe, would do a better job than an eye hoe, but I've never tried either.  

An Giolla Donn wrote:

Thom Bri wrote:ning sod. No plow since about 2015, so all spade and hoe. Spade is better than hoe.

That's a pretty substantial amount of space to have turned over! My experience using a short handle spade and eye hoe to establish garden space in the past have been consistent with what you say. I've often wondered if a forked hoe, like a magna graecia or canterbury hoe, would do a better job than an eye hoe, but I've never tried either.  

The trick for me was to go little by little. Fall/early winter is the best time to expand. The sod is weaker, and then freezing/thawing kills a lot of the roots. The hoe I have is too wide. A heavy, but narrow or pointed hoe would work better, or, the type of spade shown above.