Traditional planting of potatoes using a classic bayonet shovel is characterized by low productivity, high physical effort and uneven depth of embedding tubers into the ground. If you make a fairly simple device for planting potatoes from leftover metal, then you can forget about many of the problems of this traditional gardening procedure forever.
Will need
Materials:
- profile square pipe;
- steel strip;
- bolts and nuts;
- steel pipe;
- planting material.
Tools: measuring tape, marker, grinder with cutting disc, bench vice, hammer, welding machine.
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Potato planter manufacturing process
On adjacent sides of two profile square pipes 80x80 mm, 230 mm long (dimensions may be different), from the outer corner we draw diagonals to opposite corners. Using the straight lines, we cut with a grinder and get two pointed blanks. We remove burrs and clean the cutting lines.
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From the corners we cut off the edges of the sides at a slight angle.
Drill a hole in the center on the edge of the steel strip. We clamp the end of the strip with the hole in a vice, bend it 90 degrees and cut the resulting workpiece from the strip at some distance from the bend line.
We make the second blank in the same way. We put the first one into it, aligning the holes, and cut off the outer piece at the level of its end. We connect the resulting blanks using a bolt and nut. The result is a U-shaped knot. We will need two such prefabricated units.
We press the blanks cut from square pipes against each other at the ends of the sides, clamp them in a vice and weld the legs of the U-shaped units to them symmetrically on both sides closer to the edge of the blanks, which should rotate on the bolts and diverge to the side.
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We sharpen one side of a pair of pipes of the appropriate length onto a wedge and weld it symmetrically to the corners of the wedge-shaped blanks on both sides just below the level of the U-shaped units. We clean all welding seams with a grinder.
In principle, our homemade potato planter is ready for use for its intended purpose. We install the closed tip of the working body in the right place. In this case, the handles from the pipes must be separated.
We place a potato tuber in the working part of the digger, press the working part into the ground with our foot to the required depth and bring the handles together. In this case, the halves of the working body disperse in the ground and the tuber ends up where it needs to go.We pull the device out of the ground by the handles and repeat the process as many times as necessary. Also, our homemade potato planter ensures that the tubers are planted to the same depth, which is important for obtaining a rich harvest.
