Garlic Planting Platform A Real Back Saver

Garlic Planting Platform A Real Back Saver PLANTERS Planting 60 000 garlic cloves per acre Fred Forsburg needed a better way to plant than walk bend and drop His shop-made planting platform lets him and his helpers sit close to the ground so cloves only fall a few inches “After planting the first 1 000 cloves by hand I couldn’t bend over anymore so I would crawl ” recalls Forsburg Honeyhill Farm “Once I had the planter I could plant 2 acres in a day and go dancing that night ” Forsburg’s specialty is hardneck garlic The downside to planting it is that the garlic clove has to be placed with the rooting end down That requires getting close to the open furrow before dropping it Walking the bed meant carrying a bag of cloves as well His first attempt at a planter was a plywood sheet about 3 by 9-ft over an angle iron and steel tubing frame Wheels were mounted inside the frame which had a long fixed tongue Rectangular holes cut in the plywood allowed Forsburg and another worker good access to the open furrow Not quite satisfied he did a redesign While he could have used a drafting program to design the planter the former software engineer did it the old-fashioned way “I sat down on the concrete floor in my barn extended my legs until I was comfortable and drew a partial box around me ” recalls Forsburg “I found that 4 ft was a comfortable width so I made it 4 by 8 I again cut out rectangular holes to drop the cloves through The holes are aligned with the furrows in my beds ” He added a toolbar to the rear of the platform and replaced the fixed wheels inside the platform with adjustable wheels mounted to the toolbar The toolbar can also hold tools such as hilling discs which like the wheels can be moved side to side to match various bed widths The fixed length tongue also was replaced with an adjustable length tongue “The planter increased planting speed by 6 or 7 times while maintaining accurate placement ” says Forsburg “Two people can sit or kneel by the holes with a supply of cloves beside them ” He notes that the adjustable wheels add to the unit’s versatility He can raise the platform up to 3 ft high to roll over the tops of most vegetable crops The hydraulic lifts on his Tuff-Bilt tractor’s hitch raise the tongue to keep the platform level When the platform isn’t being used to plant garlic Forsburg lays a second plywood sheet over it and uses it to support spray tanks or his flame weeder “It means I no longer have to carry 40-lb cylinders on my back ” says Forsburg He estimates spending about $700 on the planter in 2010 and saving at least that much in labor that year and in the years that followed Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Fred Forsburg 6241 Price Rd Livonia N Y 14487 ph 585 346-3829; honeyhillfarm@rochester rr com; www honeyhillorganicfarm com

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