Backgrounder
Care of tools
Are your tools in good shape? Are you taking good care of them? The care that you take with your tools directly affects your own health and safety. You can learn a lot about the condition of your farm tools by examining them. For example, have a look at the handles. If the handles of your farming tools are loose or if the tools are not sharp enough it will be harder to do the work.
It is also important that the handles of your tools be the proper length. I’m talking about larger tools such as hoes and shovels or spades. You can easily tell what the best handle length is. Place the tool in a vertical position in front of you. The tip of the handle should be at the same height as your eyes. You can see that the proper length of the handles will depend on your height. If the handle of a tool is too short for you, you will have to bend over and could hurt your back when you use it.
So try to keep your tools in good shape. Check your shovels, spades, rakes, sickles, hoes, forks, and any other tools you use on a regular basis.
Tips about seeds and transplants
Here are a couple of tips about planting seeds and seedlings that anyone can use. When you are sowing seeds, especially small ones, they may accidentally slip out of your hands and be lost in the wind or scattered on the ground. Here’s a way to prevent that and make sure that you distribute small seeds evenly over the planting area. Simply mix the seeds with sand, sawdust or ashes before you start seeding. The ashes, sand or sawdust will keep the small seeds from sliding between your fingers. This will help you control the number of seeds that fall to the ground.
And now a word about transplants. When you grow seedlings in a nursery and then plant them in the ground, the little plants suffer some distress. This shock stops or slows down their growth for a while. There is a way to avoid this stress. First, make small paper cones with newspaper . Fill the cones with good soil. Put the cones in a box. Plant a seed in each cone. Water frequently. Once the little plants have three or four leaves they are ready to be put in the ground. To do this, dig holes in the ground where you are going to plant the seedlings. Plant the seedling without taking off the newspaper cones. After some time the newspaper will rot and the roots will be able to grow. By using this method your little plants won’t feel stress when they are transplanted.
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