The Public Labs community is in the middle of dropping the Creative Commons Share-alike license in favor of the CERN Open Hardware License 1.1" This is something we should consider. Jeffrey Warren sums up the reasons why we should care on the Public Labs site:
What is a "TOOL"? This topic is to explore how we define tools in Farm Hack. Some thoughts:
Tools are not just mechanical devices, but also technical approaches which may involve substituting biology for machinery or chemistry to accomplish a task or do work.
The following list can now be added to and edited here
larger farm type items, hydraulics, transmissions, wheels,bearings www.surpluscenter.com www.northerntool.com applied industrial
Starting up on a shoestring budget, I couldn't afford the expensive drip irrigation system. Plus, once I read about them and found out that the emitters often get clogged up and need to be replaced, it didn't sound like a very sustainable solution to me. At the very least, I wanted a solution that wouldn't cost a lot up front, but also that wouldn't require lots of upkeep and/or continuing cost.
Farm Show Magazine showcases a range of build your own ideas each month which have mostly agricultural intended uses. You can view a video now of a solar powered chicken tractor, firewood hauler, hand pushed sickle bar mower (soon to be for sale) and a pedal powered John Deere B. You can also quickly glimpse past issues using their index. Most of the ideas have crossover potential for other applications. A DVD collection is available and might prove to be a valuable starting point for pinpointing replicable solutions. Design/Build Potential ???
I am looking for plans for barrel washer aka vegetable root washer. I've done an internet search with little luck. Does anyone know where plans can be found or does anyone have first hand experience constructing their own? Also I've heard that kits are available for purchase though I haven't come across those either. Any suggestions? Thanks, Aaron
Hello all! I just wanted to share a recent (and timely!) blog post from Johnny's Selected Seeds. There are a few pictures of some high tech fancy seed cleaners, as well as an antique bean sorting table, which it appears they still use. I just loved this bit of Maine bean growing history which touches upon our discussion of centralized seed cleaning: "In the 40's and 50's they had a "Bean shop" in China [Maine] which is the town south of Albion. Many women worked in this shop which cleaned and packaged beans for market.
I wanted to attempt to write out the big picture of what I hope to develop, especially since this past weekend really helped me start seeing a kind of range of applications that could stem off of the initial infrastructure I've been working on. So, before I start, I'd like to introduce two terms:
On our veggie farm, we use a cold water pressure washer to clean out our plastic harvest bins every week. Nobody really likes the job, and it takes a long time. We have played around with different systems for cleaning them, but none seems ideally efficient.
Roxbury Farm bought a conveyor-belt, self contained bin washer last year. They said it cost them a lot of money, but has some serious "quality of life" benefits: put a dirty bin on the belt, listen to the pressure washer do it's job inside, pick up clean bin from other end.
It occurred to me several years ago that with a standardized bed system, a small grower could benefit from a non-motorized, over the bed platform, to attach row markers, seeders, cultivators, mulch layers, and the like. A 2 or 4 wheeled cart with multiple tool bars would be a significant step up from single wheel hoes or the Weedmaster Weed Master vs. "The Pig" vs. "Scuffles". One or perhaps 2 operators could push or pull an advanced cart design.