2004 - Bye Bye Job, Hello Tractor

In 2004 with me working full time for Daylesford not much was grown, just enough for our extended family and a little excess which Marc sold to a restaurant in Henley.  It was a good start but growing isn't his passion and as the season wore on I spent what little free time I had at the garden plotting and planning what he was going to do next! poor man.  When I resigned in the autumn of 2004 the decision was made that only one of us would work and I was able to really plan the following season over that winter. And I had big plans.

One of the first things I did was to get hold of an old tractor mounted Howard Rotavator.  A wonderful tool for dealing with large areas of recently ploughed land it did a fantastic job in the first two years while I was so short of time, It did have its drawbacks though and we have graduated to a much smaller Howard Gem, with whom I have an annual and passionate affair. The larger machine though effective is a bit of a brute, breaking down soil structure a little too violently and the weight of the tractor on our very light top soil did nothing to help the panned layer, it was also a job that you could only do in one go and using the smaller hand operated Gem means that should you need to run down a row or two in September before it gets too cold and wet you can, without making a big mess.  The Big boy served its purpose and I was as glad to see it go as I had been to see it arrive!