From Josh Volk, author of the best-selling Compact Farms, these inventive tools and step-by-sep instructions for making and modifying them, help small, diversified farms simplify and streamline their operations for less wear and tear on human workers and for greater efficiency overall. Josh Volk, author of the best-selling Compact Farms, offers small-scale farmers an in-depth guide to building customised equipment that will save time and money and introduce much-needed efficiencies to their operations. Volk begins with the basics, such as setting up a workshop and understanding design principles, mechanical principles, and materials properties, then presents plans for making 15 tools suited to small-farm tasks and processes. Each project includes an explanation of the tool's purpose and use, as well as the time commitment, skill level, and equipment required to build it. Projects range from the super-simple (requiring a half-day to build) to the more complex, and include how-to photographs and illustrations with variations for customising the finished implement. Along with instructions for building items such as simple seedling benches, a mini barrel washer, a DIY germination chamber, and a rolling pack table, Volk addresses systems design for farm efficiency, including how to design an effective drip irrigation system and how to set up spreadsheets for collecting important planning, planting, and market data. AUTHOR: Josh Volk is the best-selling author of Compact Farms and the proprietor of Slow Hand Farm in Portland, Oregon. He has been working on and managing small farms around the country for the last 20 years, studying the systems that make them efficient. SELLING POINTS: . Interest in compact farms and market gardens continues to grow. Small, diversified farms are seeing more support as consumers increasingly seek local alternatives to imported produce or produce grown at an industrial scale and shipped long distances. These farms sell produce at farmers' markets, operate CSAs, and provide food for farm-to-table restaurants and local institutions such as colleges and hospitals. . Small farmers need tools that suit their scale and particular needs. With planting areas inside hoophouses and greenhouses, and with beds measured in square feet rather than fields measured in acres, industrial-sized machines are unwieldy and unsafe for small-farm operations. Size-appropriate and innovative tools are essential for efficiency and success, and many of them can be built on the farm.
Build Your Own Farm Tools Equipment & Systems is a DIY and tutorial guide for the small scale farmer by Josh Volk. Due out 3rd August 2021 from Storey, it's 208 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.
Self sufficiency encompasses so many challenges: food security, shelter, repairing and making tools and the systems to support and provide for the other aspects. There's a lot of satisfaction and pride to be had in making tools which work well for their intended purpose. I worked for quite a long time as a jeweler and goldsmith and often there simply weren't ready made tools for some tasks. Being able to forge tools and build carts and other farm implements can make life on the smallholding a little easier, more fun, and (hopefully) safer.
The author has an accessible no-frills writing style and the book is laid out logically and appealingly. The graphics are high contrast, easy to read, and the tutorials are well illustrated. The introduction covers shop setup, basic tools and materials and some good basic maintenance and important safety. The tutorials are arranged into thematic chapters: greenhouse projects, field, irrigation, tools for washing and packing produce, and office tools (including some really spiffy worksheets for planning and record-keeping, which is my downfall).
Tutorials contain isometric and exploded line drawn schematics as well as materials lists and project time/cost/complexity estimates, followed by step by step tutorial directions. The projects are full of good ideas and variations to make them more specifically useful to individual readers' own needs.
Five stars. This is a very good book for home gardeners, smaller "truck farm" gardens, smallholdings, community gardens, maker's spaces, schools, library activity groups, and similar.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
