Eliot Coleman, in his seminal book, The New Organic Gardener, suggests that reducing tillage, or eliminating it completely, might prove the ideal way of growing crops. Building on this, in The Market Gardener, Jean-Martin Fortier speaks to the benefits of permanent raised beds including better drainage, no soil compaction, higher yields, and soil building. The idea is that given the right conditions, soil organisms can perform much of the tillage needed to create and maintain loose, fertile soil.
Image credit: "The Market Gardener", by Jean-Martin Fortier Of course, when you are just starting out and looking at fields of grass that need to be converted into gardens to grow vegetables and berries, the question is how do you start? Somehow, the ground needs to be prepared in an efficient manner.
Enter the two-wheeled tractor. As Jean-Martin writes,“A two-wheeled tractor, which we invariably refer to as the walking tractor, is the ideal power source for the market garden. Versatile, robust and easy to use, they are designed to do soil work on small cultivated areas. There is a world of difference between a small garden-sized rototiller and the rugged walking tractor, whose gear shifting and locking wheel differential make it much more powerful and maneuverable. Their PTO (power take off) can run all sorts of implements.”
A walking tractor can pivot on the spot for better use of available land space, and 30 inch wide implements are common for two-wheel tractors. This follows Jean-Martin’s market garden model of 48 inch wide rows made up of 30 inches of cultivated growing area + 18 inch pathways for working and harvesting.
We began looking for a walking tractor when we got SevenMaples almost two years ago, and recently found our preferred model, a gently-used BCS 853. We spent a couple hours with the seller, Scott, who gave us a much appreciated, in-depth product knowledge session. Our new BCS came with some excellent implements, including:
A Rotary Plow, which can be used to effortlessly break new ground, build raised beds, power compost cover crops and create drainage ditches.
A Rear-Tine Tiller, which is used to prepare seedbeds and cultivate with precision and ease. When gardening season is over, it power-composts spent plant materials directly back into the soil for organically rich soil in the spring.
A Rollerblade Flail Mower for shredding cover crops for quick decomposition. It has many tines that act like knives to shred green manures* and crop residues, reducing mowed material to a very small size. Jean-Martin writes, “This was such a breakthrough in our market garden that I feel it is an absolutely necessary tool when thinking about growing green manures. The flail mower also makes it very easy to clean away old crops, a job we used to do by hand.”
At some point we may also invest in a Precision Depth Roller, which attaches to the Rear-Tine Tiller and enables the tines to be set at a shallow depth of 0.5 - 2 inches to mix in soil amendments and loosen the soil for the quick growth of young roots. This plays into the philosophy of minimum tillage in order to minimize impacts to the soil ecosystem and the organisms that live within it.
With our two-wheel tractor now officially in residence, we are ready to meet the demands of the Spring 2023 planting season at SevenMaples. It’s an exciting step in the right direction, and it will definitely make the business of cultivating the land a whole lot easier. * See Jean-Martin Fortier speak about Green Manure (starting at 00:17 sec)
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