Home-Built Machine Beds And Mulches

Home-Built Machine Beds And Mulches CROPS Miscellaneous 27-6-11 Instead of spending $3,000 or so to buy equipment that would build a planting bed and mulch it with plastic in a single pass, Roy Ream decided to build one himself. With a little ingenuity, some steel, and a used Bushhog mower, Ream built a machine for about $250 that beds and mulches. What's more, by pulling two pins, the bedder can be used by itself. Ream started out with the top deck of an old Bushog for a working frame. He cut the back end off, cleaned the steel off and put a couple of coats of Rustoleum on it. The deck of the bedder is 1/4-in. thick steel, 5 ft. wide and 4 ft. long. Wing plates along with a bend in the deck, form the bed. The wings weld to moveable plates that mount to the upturned portion of the bedder. They can be adjusted to form beds from 3 1/2 ft. to 6 in. wide. The wings extend 6 in. below the bedder deck at a 45 degree angle. This ensures that as they gather the soil to form the bed, they also round off the sides. Vertical bed sides would collapse, explains Ream. The frame itself is, for the most part, made of 1/4-in. thick by 2-in. steel tubing. Two scarifier teeth mount on the sides of the 3-pt. hitch to work up the soil behind the tractor wheels to provide loose soil for the mulcher. The mulcher consists of another framework of steel tubing, also 5 ft. wide. The roll of plastic mulch is suspended beneath the side bars of the mulcher frame while two hard rubber cart tires attach to the rear cross piece of the frame. As the plastic unrolls over a bed, the wheels press down on the edges of the plastic at the side of the bed. "Garden cart wheels work the best," says Ream. "The bigger the diameter of the wheel, the better they work." The sides of the mulcher frame extend beyond the crosspiece and the wheels serve as mounts for two adjustable 16-in. discs. The discs are angled to gather loose dirt and throw it over the edges of the plastic securing it in place over the bed. A small piece of pipe in the tubing frame of the mulcher slides into the frame of the bedder. Pins connect the two pieces, making it easy to remove the mulcher when only bedding is needed. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Roy Ream, 5846 Old Ranch Rd., Sarasota, Fla. 34241 (ph 941 924-9992).

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