Welcome To Whizbang Gardening....

2009-09-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

My name is Herrick Kimball. I'm a small-scale homesteader in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. I'm the guy who "invented" the Planet Whizbang Wheel Hoe, the Whizbang Cider Press, the Whizbang Chicken Plucker, and other nifty down-to-earth homestead devices. I have established this web site to gather and present my various gardening essays and agricultural commentaries.

The essays below were first posted to my blog, www.TheDeliberateAgrarian.com, where they still reside. In time, those essays will be moved here, edited, re-posted, and this web site will be more fully developed.

You can contact me by e-mail at: hckimball@bci.net

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My Whizbang Squash Planting Secret
(Sidewall cloches and "worm magnet" BOF holes yield impressive results)

How I Plant My Garlic
(Check out the garlic planting template)

Making Pickled Garlic Scapes
(Waste not, want not. Pickled scapes are great!)

Harvesting Garlic 2007
(Wherein I run cartloads of fresh garlic through a bandsaw)

Curing Garlic Bulbs
(I invented this homemade garlic dryer and it was featured in Farmshow magazine)

Making Great Garlic Powder
(I wrote the book on making garlic powder. But you can just read this essay)

Selling My Garlic Powder At The Farm Market
(The Ithaca farmer's market is a special place)

Planting Potatoes With A Little Girl
(I must admit that four-year-old girls were once something like aliens to me)

Digging Potatoes With A Little Girl
(A truly fine ending to the previous story)

Organic Weed Annihilation (Any Weed!)
(Even bindweed)

Oh, The Joy Of Lavender
(I came up with a delightful new way to enjoy lavender. My wife thinks it is just plain stupid)

Grow HUGE Red Mangle Beets (For Your Chickens)
(Chickens love beets in the winter)

Mangle Beet Harvest
(Oh Wow. Those ARE huge beets!)

Harvesting Potatoes
(It's a good feeling when your garden cart is full of homegrown spuds)

August Homestead Photos
(Potatoes to the left of me, beans to the right.... I love August)

Sharing The First Fruit
(Remembering a short, simple, and beautiful moment)

Rethinking The Smoothie
(Have you tried smoothies made with garden greens?)

Gardening & Hope in The Springtime
(Wherein I wax poetic)

Winter Tomatoes
(How to have your own fresh tomatoes when it's snowing outside)

Ida's Example
(Ida is 88 years old, and an amazing example to us younger folks)

Earthworms & Sustainable Farming
(Read about "My Grandfather's Earthworm Farm")

Finding Palatable Treasures in The Midst of My Forlorn Spring Garden
(It may not look like much, but there's good food there)

Introducing My Homemade Automatic Compost Sifter
(You're going to like this)

Bifurcating Eschatology & My Nifty New Compost Sifter
(Eschatology first, then more compost sifter pictures)

Big Ag...Big Profits...Big Problems
(I don't like Big Ag...Part 1)

Garden Salad Flakes: Rick Machado's Great Idea
(Rick Machado is one smart guy)

The Elements of Agricultural Sustainability
(Professor Fick sums it up. Big Ag fails the test)

Roots of The Current World Food Crisis
(I don't like Big Ag... Part 2)

Big Ag & Usury Kills Indian Farmers
(Big Ag is evil)

Industrial Providers: Understanding the Oligopoly
(Here's an excerpt from my book, Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian)

How To Make & Enjoy a Peppermint Zing Sinus Sauna
(Breathe deep...Get the Zing...It's an organic pleasure)

Broken Limbs & Grant Gibbs
(America needs more men like Grant Gibbs)

Aroostook's Wood Prairie Farm
(Jim Gerritsen knows potatoes)

Stinging Nettle, Scything & Plagues
(I do the unthinkable and spread 96 pounds of man-made plague on my father's lawn)

Do Not Mortgage The Farm
(Sage advice from an old Grange song book)

Atrazine Anger
(Atrazine upsets me, and so does modern Christianity)

Every Bean's A Blessing Boys!
(I can't help but lecture my children while sorting kidney beans)

Benny's Grandfather Was A Ditch Digger
(They don't make men like they used to)

More to Come...