Category — Video

The title says it all…………..

Fert and Till from Chris Jagger on Vimeo.

Once you reach about 9 acres or so I feel a mechanical transplanter can start to pay for itself. We currently only grow 6 ourselves but I can see how it can become a necessary tool quickly. I like the style of these transplanters, plus you can get a packing-sled instead of packing wheels allowing to fit 3 transplanters in a 48″ bed.

Via the Greenhorns

A set of videos to help guide new farmers in the right direction. Cool footage for sure.

Check it out here

So I’m very pro-worker in the world of farming. But if there continues to be a shortage of young farmers, then I suspect that those of us that have chosen to farm should probably be as efficient as we can. Maybe with some automation, instead of having 10 people on 1 farm of 15 acres, there could be 2 people on 5 farms of 10 acres. I’d be interested in costing the infrastructure costs out and see what it’s feasibility actually would be…..

Here’s why I write about this.

And the company who makes these transplanters has several other videos of their innovative products. I was stuck on their site for quite awhile watching videos…..

http://fieldtransplantsystems.com.au/

We bought a Jang hand push seeder this year from Mechanical Transplanter Company in Michigan. The seeders are made in Korea. We’re going to be networking with other farmers who have bought this seeder to collaborate on which rollers and gear settings work best for specific seeds. We don’t have any video of the seeder in action yet but I did come across an interesting setup of a gang of the seeders following behind a rotary hoe prepping the seed bed. An effective use of effeciency for sure.

Watching and reading about people that are growing on a scale much larger than yourself can be highly beneficial. It’s really easy to take ideas from a grander scale and adapt them to your own scale. I’ve been watching videos from a grower in Australia that goes by “bestleeks” Their farm is Peter Schreurs and Sons in Victoria Australia.

I love all of their innovative equipment. Much of which I think is built in house. But my favorite is the planting hole puncher for leeks. It reminds me of the Imperial Walkers in Star Wars

Since my friend Josh at Slowhand Farm turned me on to Eatwell Farm out of Dixon California, I’ve been thoroughly intrigued by all the great systems approaches that Nigel has towards vegetable farming. He finds innovative tools to accomplish his tasks but always in a way that has his workers best interests in mind.

Here are two videos that illustrate a couple of their awesome cultivating tools

Nigel has a great blog too that I enjoy reading and getting updates on what he’s got going on at Eatwell.

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I’ve had several people ask what my secret was to hilling potatoes. Secret? No secret, just two disk hillers mounted on a tool bar and drive really fast. We hill our potatoes 3 times before they get too big to drive over the beds with our tractor. We could get one more pass if we had a high clearance tractor but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. It’s been great having the big disks to hill with. I purchased them from the folks at Market Farm in Pennsylvania. They’re basically one of the few full service implement dealers for small veggie equipment in the US. There’s a few others around but they seem to have the widest array of tools.

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We bought a new rototiller this spring to run behind the higher horsepower Landini tractor. We bought a 64″ model that would till the wheel tracks as I was making beds. This would help reduce the weed pressure that always happens in the wheel tracks. (Before I just used a 4 foot model that would till the 4 foot bed but left the wheel tracks to grow weeds like crazy. We would then have to come back continuously with the walk behind BCS tiller- A real time killing project) I decided to try a row marking system that mounted right on the flap of the tiller, allowing the wheels to float with the terrain. Also because the wheel tracks are being tilled- the tire tread tracks being what I used to line up for the next beds- I added two extra marking wheels on the outside to mark the edge of the bed. All in all it works pretty well. There was some bending and adjusting of the marking wheel mounts to get the angle with the ground just right, but other than that it’s worked pretty well. Let me know if you have any comments or additions to this creation.

When we started to tractor cultivate with the Electric G, we needed to make sure that the spacing between rows was very precise and consistent. Many larger farms use transplanters or vacuum seeders to set the spacing between rows. We transplant by hand and direct seed by a hand-push seeder. The solution I came up with is a simple tool bar mounted on the back of the tiller with bars made from 5/8″ flat stock with lawn mower wheels mounted at the base. I had originally thought that disc openers (like what one sees on a seed drill) would work, but I couldn’t find any used ones and I think the lawn mower wheels work better anyway. They actually firm up the soil within the row to be planted and seem to preserve some moisture this way. Best of all, this system of mounting to the tiller saves me another pass, another implement switch, as well as some fuel. Check out the video and feel free to email me with any questions.