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RE: raised bed organic gardening




Aloha,

-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence F. London, Jr. [mailto:london@metalab.unc.edu]

>1) If anyone here is actually involved in building, planting
>and maintaining raised bed gardens on an ongoing basis

Yep...I've put about half of the (tiny) front yard where I'm living in
Biointensive beds a la Ecology Action (
http://www.crest.org/sustainable/ecology_action/index.html ).  The rest of
the former lawn is now decaying under chips & sheet mulch, waiting for me to
have more time to plant some small edible perennials and herbs and whatnot
amongst carefully placed rockpiles for heat/shade (as appropriate).  I had a
small bed where I lived previously as well.

>2) Is anyone using traditional hand tools to do 1), i.e.
>English-type hand forged tools: digging forks and spades,
>eye hoes of any type from any country, scythes or machetes
>for cutting cover crops and hay mulch. What hand tools do you 
>like best? What are recommended sources for these? 

I use the English-style spade and fork (and a widger for small transplants -
worth it just for the name... ;-), and a cheapo rake for shaping.  Oh, and a
piece of junk plywood for a digging board.  The spade & fork are the Spear &
Jackson brand, purchased at a small local gardening shop near where I used
to live in another part of Seattle.  I was pleased to find them there.  Most
larger garden/nursery places and of course the big box hardware stores had
nothing even close or had never even heard of those types of tools.  I find
the tools well worth the money, as I expect they'll outlive me...I looked at
the cheaper asian-made knockoffs and they were junk as far as good tools go.
Also, they were only available with the shorter handles...even the longer
handles on the S & J are a bit short for my lanky self.  I've tried to bust
'em and I can't, not even trying to pry up a really big rock that turned out
to be a water pipe... :-D

John Schinnerer