Grower’s Choice: 4 Favorite Tools For The Long Haul
January 15, 2025 Anna Littman, the Farm Director of Ivy Creek Family Farm in Barnardsville, NC, likes to farm smart — not hard — which means she relies heavily on tools that reduce risk and prevent the wear and tear on the body that is so synonymous with small-scale farming. She tries to bring three or four new tools onto the farm annually that may reduce labor. One, maybe two, usually stick and make a long-term impact on her enjoyment of farming and on the farm’s bottom line.
The farm tools she highlights in this article make her more money because they save her and her team time:
Pat’s Quick Hitch Category 1 Black (Pat Quick Hitches)
Photo by Anna Littman
“This quick hitch makes changing implements on my Kubota L3430 and L3130 tractors safer, quicker, and more pleasant. On the 8 acres I cultivate, I use a bushhog, single-bed disc, bed shaper, spader, and film layer. Anytime I want to make new beds to plant in, I hitch all of those implements to the tractor at least once, often multiple times. This single tool saves me an hour or more every time I’m making beds in the field for planting.”
Single-Bed Disc (Buckeye Tractor)
Photo by Anna Littman
“Purchasing my single-bed disc meant that I was able to transition my fields to a layout of permanent raised beds. This implement has cut dozens of hours out of field preparation and has eliminated the repeated work of laying out the field each year after discing. Instead, I disc my raised beds, which stay in place year after year.”
Classic Footstep Soil Probe (Oakfield Apparatus)
Photo by Anna Littman
“Soil testing is essential to a successful crop, but farmers often choose to soil test infrequently. With the Classic Footstep Soil Probe, collecting a soil sample is easy and fast, reducing the barriers to any farmer making the investment in sending off a soil sample. We tested this probe next to a simple $20 hand-held probe, and the difference was huge. Pressing the handheld version into the ground to the necessary depth was difficult, and having to bend down and stand up at each time collecting soil was time consuming. The design of the Classic Footstep Probe, on the other hand, allows for incredibly fast soil collection that is accurate and easy. You just press the probe into the ground with your foot, using the weight of your body, remove it, and tap it into a bucket, all while standing.”
Fertilizer Injector (Dosatron)
Photo by Anna Littman
“For indoor farming, a Dosatron is essential for fertigation. This tool is precise, accurate, and reliable. I’ve had the same Dosatron feeding my indoor tunnel-grown crops for over 10 years, with no repairs needed. I can fertigate eight different tunnels with one Dosatron.”
Click here to see more installments of American Vegetable Grower’s “Kick the Tires” series.
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