[Market-farming] seeders

Road's End Farm organic87 at frontiernet.net
Sun Mar 29 14:54:17 EDT 2009


On Mar 28, 2009, at 9:43 PM, Thomas Patrick Hurtgen wrote:

> Rivka,  What parts of the Earthway are you cleaning and with what?  I 
> have an older Earthway that actually has a grove worn in the aluminum 
> where the plate rotates.  Overall I have good performance from my 
> seeder but when planting peas, it will sound and act like a popcorn 
> popper -- spitting pea seeds out of the box instead of dropping them 
> gently down the seeding tube.  Any help that readers can offer would 
> be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.
>  Tom, Hurtgen Meadows Farm, zone 7, Hillsborough, NC

As I remember it, I just took apart everything that looked reasonably 
easy to take apart, washed it all off, including the seed plates 
(using, I think, a little dish soap and a dish cloth), let it dry, 
oiled what looked like it could probably use oiling (I don't remember 
whether I used 30 weight or WD40, but think it was probably the WD40), 
and put it all back together. I only figured out last year that I 
needed to do this. The problem you describe with the peas had been 
getting worse and worse; also with soybeans; and was massively better 
after the cleaning. I expect I'll do it every year. This year I'll try 
letting the seed plates and hopper dry without rinsing all the soap 
off, as another poster suggested; though it occurs to me that I might 
need to rinse and resoap, to make sure the dirt does get rinsed off.
>

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale
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