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  • From: Leslie Moyer <unschooler AT lrec.org>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] vibrating seeder thanks
  • Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:01:11 -0600

Someone else asked me offlist and here's my reply to her.  I thought others might want to know, too, and almost replied to the list anyway:

Yeah, this is the one I got and I did get it from Johnny's: 
I can't seed EVERY kind of seed with it, but it works great for most of the things that it is hardest to seed by hand.  For example, it works really well for small seeds, such as many of the herbs I'm planting.  Some of the tomato seeds I got were really stuck together and it didn't work well for those, but other tomato seeds (if they were cleaned well prior to drying--such as all of the tomato seeds I got from Peaceful Valley) it worked great for.  It worked *great* for pepper seeds and eggplant.  It works pretty well for round seeds, though it was more likely to put more than one seed per cell on those unless I was really careful. Basically, the smaller the seed, the better it worked, but it made almost everything go faster.  

At one point (while seeding those stuck-together tomato seeds), I decided it wasn't saving me much time and I went back to hand-seeding.  I did that for a while and then, when it seemed to be going SO slow, I went back to the seeder and realized how much *faster* it was going with that.  

It is allowing me to more easily get one-seed-per-cell which I think is going to pay for itself pretty quickly since I'm selling transplants this year.  I'll have fewer plants to thin this way, which means more plants per seed packet.  Not SUCH a big deal, maybe, if you're growing for yourself as seeds aren't that expensive, but since I'm selling plants, it means a lot to me. Still--every little bit adds up and if you can cut your seed costs by 1/3 or 1/2 with this, it would save a lot.  I think it will pay for itself in one season for me because of less thinning (less waste) and I'm not that big of a grower.

I think it would be harder to use in the field (vs. seeding into flats) because the top is open and it's too easy to spill seed, but you could still use it like that if you were careful.  It's convenient to have the top open like this because it does help to manipulate the seed in the chute some (I use a long, pointed bamboo skewer, but a toothpick works, too) to get it to come out evenly.  

--Leslie

On Feb 16, 2011, at 3:37 PM, Marcy wrote:

OK. Now I'm sold!
Which one did you buy Leslie?

Marcy
SE Colo

-----Original Message-----
From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Leslie Moyer
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 10:57 PM
To: Market Farming
Subject: [Market-farming] vibrating seeder thanks

Thanks to everyone who recommended the vibrating hand seeder last year!!  I
bought one and have used it for all of my seeding this spring and it has
gone SO much faster than seeding everything by hand like I did last year.  I
have carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis and I've seeded a lot more flats
than I did last year and am still pain-free.  I still have a LOT to go--I'm
biting off way more than I can chew this year, I think--but it's going so
quickly that I don't expect to have any problems.  I wasn't even involved in
that conversation--I just listened in.  But it was very helpful information
for me and I wanted to let you know!

--Leslie / Oklahoma


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