Ah, the Fukuoka workshop over the weekend:

Over the weekend, we built A-frames, dug swales, and sowed clover seeds at a farm outside Salunga. It’s hard work! But satisfying on many levels.

Digging swales is a method for retaining water on a field where you have little irrigation available. You build an A-frame out of Bamboo, 2x4s, whatever, a weight is suspending in the middle to find the contours in a field. After the contours are marked, a trench a length the A-frames sides, a spade deep and wide is dug. That was just Saturday…

Making seed balls is an ancient method of “planting” crops revived by Fukuoka-san and used in no-till planting. Very simply, seeds are mixed with moistened dirt, sometimes compost and manure, and simply broadcast onto the field. Clover’s used as a cover crop to help stabilize the nitrogen levels in soil that has not been used for non-conventional farming. A significant advantage of seed balls is that they will not attract many birds.

PS I hate the term “conventional farming” when applied to typical farming that involves machinery, plowing, and that most baneful invention for agricultural “progress” petrochemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. The kind of farming practiced through DigIt and elsewhere is more in line with agriculture practiced for 1000s of years, in particular no petrochemicals