Eric Hanson

Timothy, I am glad that you revived this thread from so long ago!

Something that I have wanted to try but have never done is to see if I can use clover to crowd out every other "weed" in the pathway.  My thinking has always been that the clover can fix nitrogen there and that nitrogen might become accessible to some especially long & broad rooted plant in the actual bed.  Maybe tomatoes planted along the edge of the bed could get their roots out of the bed and into those pathways, rich with nitrogen?

I am embarking on my new garden beds so maybe I will have something interesting to report back.  I have to admit that I don't like the idea of mowing my pathways.  I would go to pretty great lengths to make certain that the field grass that is currently there is somehow not there when I start my garden.  Wood chips always sound great--until the weeds grow right through them!

Eric

Hi Steve.

If your soil is acid after laying down conifer wood chips, it was acid before the ships were there in the first place.  The fear of acidification of soils from conifers is terribly overblown.


And then sadly, this fear leads to people not putting down chips.  And wood chips can do absolute wonders for the soil beneath.  At this point in my gardening journey, wood chips are an essential staple to any garden bed that I will make.

I am definitely more obsessive than the typical gardener, but my standard practice now is to lay down cardboard in order to starve existing plants of light.  The next step will be to lay down a 6" layer of wood chips that come from an extensive brush-clearing project on my property.  From there, I inoculate the chips with Wine Cap spawn and plant tomatoes into fertile holes in the chips.  The tomatoes provide the mushrooms with shade and the mushrooms break down the wood into fantastic garden bedding for the tomatoes.  The process takes about a year, but the good part is that you can get good use of the bed even as the wood chips are being devoured,

After a year(ish), when I dig into the bed, the remains of the chips look more like coffee grounds than wood chips.  And they kinda merge into the soil, but there is no clear boundary.  Worms move organic matter back and forth from the chips down into the ground--my garden beds seethed with worms!

So lay down those chips!  Even if you don't go my admittedly eccentric route, microbial action from the soil will do much of what I do with the Wine Caps, but on a longer scale.


Go Wood Chips!!

Eric

A couple of remaining tool thoughts:

If you are just getting into homesteading, have no power tools yet and a limited budget, I would give very serious thought to Ryobi tools.  Ryobi used to be thought of as a sort of cheapo brand that would not stand up to heavy use.  No longer.  Ryobi tools stand up with the best but for a mere fraction of the cost.  Just try comparing the cost of the standard 5-tool starter kit with Milwaukee (!), DeWalt, Ridgid, or many, many others.  The savings are pretty great.

AND, Ryobi has a VAST array of tools in its 18v platform.  Personally, I am in Ridgid, and I really like my tools, but I get frustrated that there is a dearth of options in the lineup.  At one time (15-20 years ago?), Ridgid looked like the up-and-comer and was really pushing the technology limits and doing so at competitive prices.  But for a good 10 years, their lineup has remained stagnant, the tools have gotten more expensive, and the lineup is limited--especially in outdoor power tools (trimmer, lawn mower, etc.).



On garden hand tools:

About 10-15 years ago I discovered the grub hoe.  Wow, what a great way to dig a garden bed!  I will never use a shovel again for this purpose.  A grub hoe is so much better on the back.  A good grub hoe has a heavy, forged blade (not a thin stamped one that you get at a big-box) that is probably 6" wide and maybe a foot or so long,  Its weight alone really helps it chop through even dense clay.  I discovered the grub hoe through www.easydigging.com.  From there I found all sorts of other garden tools that are far higher quality and back saving than the ones found in big box stores.  In addition to the grub hoe, I get a lot of use from the grape hoe, fork hoe, hand hoe, and I wish I would have seen and purchased the pointed hoe.  From https://www.prohoe.com/ I frequently use the 7' no break rake (great for gathering and digging at the same time), the 6" scuffle hoe (but I could really use a larger one--maybe 8" to 11").  And there are all other sorts of garden tools here as well.

ALL of these tools are MUCH more durable that what you will find at any big-box store.  These are more expensive up front, but my thoughts are that the garden hand-tool budget is probably the smallest of all your tool categories.  These tools have proven to me that they are real time and back savers.  I really can't explain how much faster and more gentle-on-my-back the grub hoe is over a shovel.  And that pointed hoe looks great!  With my clay soil, that pointed tip would be amazing for sinking into stubbornly dense soil that does not want to yield to anything--certainly not my back.  I may put the pointed hoe on my Christmas list this year.  Again, my thoughts are that while these tools are more expensive up front, they will certainly save you time and save your body.  That's a bargain in my book.  Maybe you could think of the savings from buying Ryobi to buying the more sturdy garden tools.


Ultimately, you know your budget far better than me.  You know your goals and expectations, your money, investments and resources and you have judgement to bear on initial purchasing choices.  I could never choose for you because I am not you and I do not walk in your shoes.  All I can do is offer my thoughts and advice based on my experiences, successes and failures.


**Edited to Add**


I keep forgetting to add one additional, essential, relatively inexpensive component to owning tools--KEEP THEM ORGANIZED!!  

Owning tools is meaningless if you can't find them when you need them.  In my bachelor days, I always knew exactly where every single one of my tools was located at any one time.  

But then I got married

And had kids!

And my kids used my tools but did not put them away!


Right now I am trying to collect all of my old hand tools, especially my socket wrench collection.  While it may be normal to misplace/lose an occasional socket, at the moment I have two socket sets that are a bit of a disaster.  There should be six wrenches between the two (two 1/4", 3/8"/ 1/2") and I can only find one!  I am not the most organized person, so I can't put the blame solely on my kids, but whatever the case, I have a pretty large number of tools that are misplaced which means at some time I paid for them and at the moment they are simply gone (but hopefully to be found!).  A lot of the time, the reason that things get misplaced is that I grab tools from my tool box but they don't get put back right away.  So my current endeavor is to make a collection of small-to-medium sized tool kits for specific jobs.  For instance, I have a dedicated electrical tool kit with all the tools needed for electrical work.  I am putting together and sort of standardized kit for working on my tractor with tools specific to that job.  I have found that the best (for me) tool case is a plastic ammo can.  These are reasonable cheap, have good latching lids with a waterproof seal (in case you want to work under water?), a dedicated, easy-to-grab handle that folds away, and they are easily stackable.  My favorite sizes are the .50 caliber ammo can and the .556 magazine ammo can.  I especially like the latter.  It cost me $17, it is larger than the .50 caliber can, but is still easy to pick up and carry around.  The .50 caliber size has been perfectly sized for my electrical tools, and the .556 size is good for some larger tools I need for the tractor.

In either of these cases, the cases will be stocked with their own specific tools.  This might mean that I am duplicative--having the same tool purchased twice so I have one for each can, but if I can do this to ensure that I don't loose the one I am working with, again, I find this a bargain.

I attached a picture of some of my cases below.  In the background I have three .556 sized cans and in the front is a slightly larger one (not certain the caliber size)




Good luck to anyone considering any of these options or considering any of my advice.


Eric

And one more thought on future medical complications:



I have five years before retirement, after which I plan on using my tractor much more frequently.  But doing so frequently involves me doing physical work that requires close medical attention to my back!  I have a couple of toys (did I say that, I meant tools!) that I want acquire before retirement.  

At the moment, the first attachment is a flail mower so that I can do good brush mowing along trails, next to overgrown hedges, and generally mow in places that are not conducive to using the zero turn (miserable on a slope!) and needs a better finish than a rough cutter.

The second is a grapple.  The reason should be obvious—I can pick up heavy materials, carry and place them without getting off the tractor seat and that will certainly be better on my back.


My original plan was to get the flail mower in spring’26, whick is why I got the hydraulics last summer (to operate the hydraulic side-offset on the mower).  But I am wondering if I should go for the grapple and save my back one more year of heavy back-work.  My back problems have already cost me a number of unnecessary sick days this year and it has left a negative impact at school,

Both attachments are about the same price, but I have a huge chipping project coming up and a grapple would definitely be great for productivity, but perhaps even better for back injuries not incurred.


I am not looking for permission, but I am looking to bounce ideas off other like-minded people.


Eric

Timothy,

There are good points made about leaving stubble to slow wind.  But as was stated, that applies mostly to arid locations.  I assume that upstate NY does not qualify?

Therefore, I agree with the consensus that chop and drop is the winner here.  So many reasons why--but to me the biggest one is simply that you have more decaying vegetation in contact with the soil.  In my experience, that's always a good thing.



Eric

Here is a picture of where my new plots will go,  at the moment I have laid down cardboard on three of the six plots.  The entire area will be fenced in.


Eric

Larry,

Very nice.  These are good broad-scale, big thinking type of lessons-learned that you can/are passing on to others trying to do the same.  In your case, you deliberately can't be specific as your specific advice might work in one place but not another (grow peanuts here or tomatoes.  

I have a few, more specific thoughts of my own.  I will try to list some of them, and oddly, some will crash right into and contradict others.  But that's life--right?



So here are a few of my suggestions:

1)  When you make your move (either buying new or altering existing), don't spend all your money upfront.  In fact, I would say keep at least half of your savings.  This new endeavor is a wild, wonderful thing, but it won't be cheap up front as you will certainly need to buy additional items.

2)  Consider making a list of various things you will need, especially tools.  Life on a homestead is practically impossible without tools.  Tools can range from a screwdriver up to a tractor and it attachments.  Tools will enable you to do all sorts of things that you can not do without them, but they can have a really hefty price tag.  My short categorized list would be hand tools, power tools, outdoor hand tools (shovel, rake), outdoor power tools (lawn mower) and tractor (ultimate outdoor tool, also the most expensive).  

On the hand tools, I advise not going terribly cheap--I absolutely hate having my tools break when I am fixing something broken.  I used to like Craftsman--now I am not so certain.  Milwaukee looks like the absolute best but they are pricy, There are some house brands like Kobalt (Lowes) and Husky (Home Depot) that are probably very good.  Do a little research.  Also, get socket tools in kits--you can get a lot of sizes in a single kit for a reasonable price.  The same goes for other hand tools if you can find them.

For power tools, maybe consider one of the 5-tool combos to start--Drill, Saw, Impact driver, Recip Saw, Flashlight, 2 batteries.  Lots of options, but good (and not hugely expensive) options are: DeWalt, Ryobi, Ridgid to name a couple.  The list goes on, but again, do your research.

Outdoor tools:  I like good sturdy handles on shovels.  I don't like a wooden handle on my spade--they always break.  I like the fiberglass.  I have yet to break one.  

What do you think you will need for things like a lawn mower?  Do you even need one?  They can be useful even if not mowing (pulling a cart can really help).

Tractors!  Hugely useful, and Hugely expensive.  But think within a budget.  A subcompact tractor is a little larger than a riding mower and they are amazing.  Don't rule it out as being too small.


Some other thoughts:

Do this when you are young and have the body and strength to endure.

BUT

Wait till you have sufficient finances to pull this off! (like I said, the advice crashes into itself!)

Dream big, but plan for a small start--?
*if you have the property, really envision what is possible
BUT
*don't expect perfection.  Certainly not on your first try

Carefully consider how big a house you will need


I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea
For my day-to-day, I need a way to get myself and my tools to where I am going to work on the homestead today.  So for me that means I load up my tractor and drive.  But you could of courses use a garden tractor and a cart, a 4-wheeler and a cart, you could walk and pull a cart behind you.

Use your own best judgement

Don't let anything that I or anyone else tells you stop you from doing something that you really don't want to do or do something you really don't.

Its your dream--live it!



Eric

Oh, John--you are so right about the future medical expenses!



And I can get there without even having things drop on my feet at all.  The sheer amount of awkward back work that I needed is greatly, almost completely gone.

So in say, two years and I look back at the decision to get the hydraulics, I can ask myself "Do I miss that $1500 because I should have put it elsewhere?".  And the answer is a decidedly "NO!"

Just this last weekend I backed the tractor up, tilted the 3pt and that was that.


To anyone reading this and thinking about getting a new tractor and considering the same, my advice is to buy the top link.  It is cheaper than the medical bills to say nothing of the time and frustration of hooking it up without.  And to be certain, I really do understand being on a tight budget--I have been on a very tight budget for almost all of my life.  Its true that my wife is a doctor, but does not make us rich and she had a bunch of debt from her education.  I needed a tractor because of the land we own and the house we built--which kinda maxed our incomes out at the time.  Fortunately, we both earn much more than in the past.  I originally bought a much smaller tractor than I thought was appropriate (but still an amazing machine) and I tend to buy just the necessities at the time and gradually improve over time.

But this one part is, in my opinion, well worth the relatively small cost (compared to the cost of the tractor)  in terms of damage not done to your body.  Your older self can thank me later.

Eric  

I thought I would add in a quick note:

There are all sorts of sizes and shapes of batteries as we all know.  There is another size of Lithium cell that is somewhat common for larger battery packs.   That size is 21700 which as you can probably guess is

A round cell

That is 21mm in diameter

And is 70mm tall.

The numbers might not look like much, but these batteries a quite a bit larger than the 18650s.




Eric

One other thing:

I should have mentioned this earlier, but after I got the whole project finished I enthusiastically tried to hook up my rotary cutter.  I couldn't do it.  The two lower pins linked up just fine, but the toplink was *JUST* too short.  I had to buy the next sized cylinder.  That new one is perfect.

So this brings me to two thoughts about anyone else wanting to do this or something cylinder.  


1) make sure that you measure carefully and allow for the unexpected to happen.  Avoid connections at the extreme ends wherever possible.

2) I have an extra hydraulic cylinder in my garage that I am not using.  Anyone want to buy an unused but discount priced hydraulic toplink?




Eric