Very small vegetable farms (under 5 acres) can rarely afford the luxury of automated farm equipment. Our farm relies on small human powered tools and very small engines which makes our venture very labor intensive. We have a small tiller and a simple tractor, but most of the weeding, etc. is done by human power. But this year we decided to tackle the most hated job on the farm--plastic mulch laying. Plastic mulch is one of the keys to our produce as it warms the soil and keeps weeds to a minimum. The problem is that laying it by hand is back breaking and is the epitome of donkey work.
The jury rigged tractor in the photo is our reverse engineered version of an automated plastic mulch layer, which hopefully will end our long, grueling days of hand laying plastic mulch on the fields. Mounted on the front are two small shovels for digging the trench. The plastic roll is attached underneath with materials scavenged from an old weight set and on the back two coulters hill soil onto the plastic to keep it in place. Its maiden voyage is the other picture. As you can see it was somewhat of a success, but it is still a work in progress.
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