The Two-Wheel Tractor Handbook: Small-Scale Equipment and Innovative Techniques for Boosting Productivity - Paperback

by Zach Loeks (Author)

Small but mighty - a comprehensive guide to the use of two-wheel tractors for gardeners, homesteaders, landscapers, and farmers

More affordable than four-wheel tractors and infinitely more versatile than single- purpose power equipment such as rototillers, two-wheel tractors are an ideal solution for an astonishing array of garden, landscaping, and agricultural applications.

Two-wheel tractors are multifunctional, economical, practical, maneuverable, portable, and low impact. Yet choosing the equipment is only half of it, the other half is integrating the right machine and implements into your land-based enterprise and coupling it with innovative high-efficiency techniques. Coverage includes:

• Why you need a two-wheel tractor
• Two-wheel tractor essentials including tractor implement options and functions
• Equipment decision-making to suit your scale, context, enterprises, and budget
• Safety equipment, operation, and basic maintenance
• Innovative use strategies including micro-plowing, making permabeds, in situ mulching, compost-a-path design, crop guilds, scaling up, and diversified crop management
• How to start from scratch, clearing new land, scaling up your enterprises and more
• Case studies and rich examples from suburban landscaping to commercial market gardens from Europe to North America.
• "Pro-tips" and sidebars for rapidly elevating your skills.

The Two-Wheel Tractor Handbook shows small-scale growers how to leverage walk-behind tractors to maximize the productivity and profitability of their enterprises. This full-color, highly illustrated guide is a must-have tool for urban farmers, suburban gardeners, rural homesteaders, orchardists, landscapers, and market gardeners looking to boost production.

Back Jacket

Small but mighty -- a comprehensive guide to the use of two-wheel tractors for highly productive gardens, landscapes, and farms

This book is truly unique, full of tips, hints, and tidbits even for someone like me who's been farming with such tractors for over 20 years.
-- Jean-Martin Fortier, author, The Market Gardener

Jam-packed with great information. This book is going to save serious growers a lot of time tinkering around.
-- Curtis Stone, author, The Urban Farmer

TWO-WHEEL TRACTORS are multifunctional, economical, practical, maneuverable, portable, and low impact. Yet choosing the equipment is only half of it; the other half is integrating the right machine and implements into your land-based enterprise and coupling it with innovative high-efficiency techniques. Coverage includes:

• Why you need a two-wheel tractor
• Two-wheel tractor essentials including tractor implement options and functions
• Equipment decision-making to suit your scale, context, enterprises, and budget
• Safety equipment, operation, and basic maintenance
• Innovative use strategies including micro-plowing, making "Permabeds," in situ mulching, the "Compost-a-path Method," crop guilds, scaling up, and diversified crop management
• How to start from scratch, clearing new land, scaling up your enterprises, and more
• Case studies and rich examples from suburban landscaping to commercial market gardens from Europe and North America
• "Pro tips," "design boxes," and other sidebars for rapidly elevating your skills.

The Two-Wheel Tractor Handbook shows small-scale growers how to leverage walk-behind tractors to maximize the productivity and profitability of their enterprises. This full-color, highly illustrated guide is a must-have tool for urban farmers, suburban gardeners, rural homesteaders, orchardists, landscapers, and market gardeners looking to boost production.

A detailed, beautiful, and much-needed must-have for anyone serious about using small machines to manage their farm.
-- Matt Powers, author, Regenerative Soil

This very practical manual will help us really understand our two-wheel tractors and get the best out of them.
-- Pam Dawling, author, The Year-Round Hoophouse and Sustainable Market Farming

ZACH LOEKS is an educator, grower, permaculture designer, and edible ecosystem innovator. Director of the Ecosystem Solution Institute, he helps homes, farms, schools, and municipalities create more edible and diverse landscapes. He is the author of The Edible Ecosystem Solution and The Permaculture Market Garden. Zach lives on his farm in Ontario.

Author Biography

Zach Loeks is an educator, grower, second-generation permaculture designer innovating and specializing in Edible Ecosystem Design. His passion is demonstrating how small actions - strategically linked - can create big change. He is director of the Ecosystem Solution Institute, where he consults widely with homes, farms, colleges, schools, and municipalities across North America and around the world. His purpose is to help people create more edible and diverse farms, gardens, and landscapes while enhancing food security, community well-being, and societal resilience. Zach manages an award-winning farm featuring diversified food forest products, heirloom garlic, and a hardy tree nursery. His innovations have earned him three provincial awards. He is the author of The Edible Ecosystem Solution and The Permaculture Market Garden. Zach splits his time between his rural farm in Ontario and a sister urban farm in Winnipeg, Manitoba.