THE MAGNA GRECIA HOE

A groundbreaking tool for "The World Made By Hand"

The transformation of lawns (along with other urban and rural "marginal" little pieces of Earth) into gardens is finally gaining notable momentum. And, more so now than a decade or two ago, significant portion of these new gardeners are doing it with hand-powered, rather than motorized tools. This, in view of both Peak Oil and Climate Change, is a darn good strategy...

The initial low-tech breaking of the sod can be accomplished with various basic tools, which can be roughly divided into two categories:

The best version of each of these can, under certain conditions, out-perform a representative of the other group -- or members of the same group. The spade/shovel/garden fork group is probably the most popular in North America, while the digging hoes - of which hundreds of models were once made -- are more versatile and widespread globally. (The broad forks/u-bar diggers are, in my view, limited in application and for now excluded from this discussion.)

To establish a garden "from scratch", with only one tool -- and then tend it throughout the whole season -- I consider the digging hoe as the most expedient option. But not all hoes are created equal... and the closer you can get to the "right kind" of hoe, the more this will be true.

During the 36 years of gardening we have used a rather wide variety of human-powered tools to work the soil. The digging fork (albeit a good version thereof) has featured as the most essential of them all, often taking at once the place of a plow and a weeding hoe. The classic square-bottomed garden spade, by the way, is somewhat useless in this region's stony ground. So are the likes of the English swan neck or the collinear hoes which have been hanging in the shed unused for years because we had long ago switched to the pointed/heart versions. We have many samples of these ranging in weight from 200 to 1000gm. Satisfied with them all, we weren't looking for another principally different design. But life is full of surprises...

This spring I put a handle on a curious gardening tool I brought from Italy, and Ashley (who is a seasoned and enthusiastic digging fork user) was the first to put it to the test. She went to deep-till some beds in what mostly was years' worth of accumulated worm castings, now very compacted, as well as try it out in our new "pasture garden" where, after one rough moldboard plowing a year ago (with livestock having free access to interim), we planned to make a corn and potato patch with only hand tools.

She came back excitedly in a rather short time with a request: "Call to Italy right away and order more of these." The "these" she was referring to are the so-called Magna Grecia hoe, popular in the Calabria region of South Italy (but, curiously enough, in very few other places).

The prongs are 12 inches long (between the eye and the tips), the tough, well-beveled chopping blade on the opposite side 2 3/4 inches wide and 4 1/2 inches long. The head weighs 1250gm. It may appear odd -- but whoever designed this hoe must have understood something about the dynamics of soil penetration that many others apparently have not. We do have other pronged hoes, but I would not have imagined a hand tool to penetrate into soil with such ease -- nor be capable, after each swing, of aerating/lifting/moving the amount of earth the Magna Grecia does. The secret must lie in its particular dimensions: the gradually tapering prongs (most pronged hoes do not have this geometry) and just the right distance between them, so that even our rather loose soil does not slip through. I should perhaps also explain that most of the rocks comprising this otherwise light loam, are actually quite small (and not readily apparent in the videos below). Nevertheless, it does not take much of an imbedded rock to effectively stop the penetration of a wide-bladed tool. And even a four inch face may often be "prohibitively wide"; hence the "uselessness" of digging spades in this neck of the woods.

Here are a few short videos of our new "groundbreaker" in action, in a situation where the common grub hoe would be neither easy to use nor -- in comparison -- very efficient. The surface is an old pasture where, in some places, the topsoil is only 2-3 inches deep. When I last plowed it (28 years ago) with a horse-drawn wheel plow I would, in some sections of that field (including the area where this clip was taken), stand with both feet on top of the moldboard to keep the point from jumping out of the furrow. During those rough-riding moments I used to think that land like this should never have been wrestled from the native forest...

The third clip on that page shows the loosening of an abandoned groundhog mound (which sheep trampled over for several seasons) typically a job for a pickax.

In any case, in our test on this one spot where the video was made, a 6 inches wide square-face hoe (800 gm. head) penetrated 2 inch deep with approximately the same force that sunk a pointed version 4 inches and the Magna Grecia 8-10 inches. And while loosening the second (deeper) layer, the first two hoes were made fools of along side of this two-pronged workhorse.

The conclusion? If the concept of EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested) were applied to a movement with a gardening tool, the goal being to penetrate, loosen and partially prepare the soil so that seeds could (after some version or another of minor surface preparation) be planted, I believe this unusual two-pronged hoe would outperform most (if not all) other hand digging tools presently sold in North America. I also know that on our farm some of the other hitherto "essential" gardening tools will now rest more than they used to... There is one more note of significance regarding this one: The peculiar thing we've become aware of while comparing the square-bottomed and pointed hoes with the Magna Grecia is that in any other but relatively loose soil conditions, the first two designs give the body a slight jar whenever they reach the end of each swing's penetrating depth. The pronged hoe feels different; even when driven up to its neck into the ground, there appears to be some "magical" cushioning effect. Consequently it causes far less fatigue during extended use. This is no small issue - because a question must be raised: how much endurance do we have as a future nation of gardeners, and how much energy at our disposal? That remains to be seen...

Interim, while the present infrastructure still functions, our task is to drop many preconceptions of what is adequate/sufficient/necessary etc, and explore unconventional concepts and tools.