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  • From: <sunnfarm AT netscape.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Tips on efficient filling and seeding of trays?
  • Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 19:43:14 -0700

I built a flat filler using two 2"x8ft long angle irons as runners set wide enough for a 1020 tray. I built a long narrow plywood hopper box to hold a loose bale of soil mix mounted on top of the runners with a tunnel under it for the trays to slide through. With one hand I would push the seedling tray into the tunnel while with the other hand aggitate and move soil mix into trays just as they entered the tunnel. Excess soil was collected in a box under the filler. I could easily fill 100 trays an hour by myself. A picture is worth a 1000 words but the flat filler is presently rotting in my scrap pile of inventions. Your not a farmer until you have a sizable scrap pile of inventions. Today I perfer to fill by hand like you are doing. I fill 2-300 trays a day  using a motar box or sometimes the bucket loader. and I can easily fill 2000 four inch pot in a day by hand without a filler. Sometimes doing things the hard way is the best way. A big mistake so many small growers make is buying too many toys that don't match the scale of their operation.
For small seeds get them pelleted its a lot easier that way.... Bob.
Sunny Meadow Farm
Bridgeton, NJ.
 

--- tomsgardens AT yahoo.com wrote:

From: Tom <tomsgardens AT yahoo.com>
To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [Market-farming] Tips on efficient filling and seeding of trays?
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 16:35:58 -0700 (PDT)

Up in my neck of the woods I'm still in the middle of getting seeds going inside, starting almost everything in 72 cell trays and sometimes 36 cell trays.  I'm a very small grower and start fewer than 40 trays each spring, but that's enough to make we wish for some more efficient ways of doing things. 

 

For example, how about something simple like filling the cells with starter mix? Right now I'm just scooping the damp mix on top of the cells and using my hands to work it around and into the cells, trying to get them all filled and slightly packed, without losing a lot off the edges in the process.  There's gotta be a faster and better way to do this. How do you all do it?

 

For a second example, how do you all handle small seeds?  I do mostly flowers, so small seeds are pretty much my lot in life.  A vacuum seeder is probably not ever going to be in my future, but what about those little hand-held seeders with a squeeze bulb and different sized tips?  Have any of you tried those?  I am currently using a little plastic seeder that I hold in one hand and tap with the other to make the seeds march down the spout and drop off the end.  I get fairly good control, but it's pretty slow.  I sure hope there's something better.

 

Any advice would be very welcome.

==============
Tom at Tom's Gardens
Cut Flowers & Veggies
Northern Lower Michigan


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