No Tech Magazine

The Culticycle: a Pedal-Powered Tractor

"The Culticycle is a pedal powered tractor that can cultivate, seed, spray, or pull gear for most low horsepower tasks. Small tractors do many jobs very well and very fast, but also consume fuel, compact soil, cost a lot, and cause physical damage to the operator -– mainly spine and joint problems. Many of their jobs could be done, slower but better, by human pedal power.

This prototype consists of:

• the front ends of 2 bikes welded together at 42” on center;
• a lawn tractor differential mounted in a unistrut rectangle for a rear end , with 3/4" round axles and 20” ATV tires;
• a bike frame welded above the rear end with motorcycle sprocket and chain driving the differential (a springloaded idler tensions the chain);
• a belly mount lift to hold cultivators, seeders, etc.;
• a bike handlebar, separate from the bike frame and joined to the front end, steering the front wheels.

The materials are rebar, unistrut, landscape rake tines, and parts from bikes, an ATV, and a lawn tractor. It attempts to show that human pedal power can do some jobs of small tractors, albeit in twice the time, and that the design can be simple enough that no extra weight is needed for traction. The effort required is similar to climbing a 10 degree slope on a seventies Schwinn 3 speed. This prototype was built for testing: a more easily buildable version is in the works."

Found at Farmhack. This is begging for an open modular approach. Thanks to Tim Cooke.

How to Plant an Iroquois Garden

"According to Iroquois legend, corn, beans, and squash are three inseparable sisters who only grow and thrive together. This tradition of interplanting corn, beans and squash in the same mounds, widespread among Native American farming societies, is a sophisticated, sustainable system that provided long-term soil fertility and a healthy diet to generations." 

"Corn provides a natural pole for bean vines to climb. Beans fix nitrogen on their roots, improving the overall fertility of the plot by providing nitrogen to the following years corn. Bean vines also help stabilize the corn plants, making them less vulnerable to blowing over in the wind. Shallow-rooted squash vines become a living mulch, shading emerging weeds and preventing soil moisture from evaporating, thereby improving the overall crops chances of survival in dry years. Spiny squash plants also help discourage predators from approaching the corn and beans. The large amount of crop residue from this planting combination can be incorporated back into the soil at the end of the season, to build up the organic matter and improve its structure." Read more: 1 / 2 / 3.

Straw Bale Gardening

"Straw Bale Gardening is simply a different type of container gardening. The main difference is that the container is the straw bale itself and is held together with two or three strings." 

"Once the straw inside the bale begins to decay the straw becomes 'conditioned' compost that creates an extraordinary plant rooting environment. Getting the straw bales conditioned is an essential part of the process, and should be started two weeks prior to your target planting date wherever you are located."

"This gardening technique works well anywhere in the country or the world for that matter." Read more: here and here.

Solar Powered Garden Helper Machine

"I really love gardening but I have a bad back and when it comes to staying bent over in the garden it gets rough. So I built this Helper Machine. I call it My P-Machine. Planting/Picking/Pulling weeds/Putting around the garden machine."

More.

Hat tip to Rob De Schutter.

Lifting Tool for Carrying Plant Containers

The tool shown here was designed for use in outdoor nurseries specializing in ornamental and bedding plants. At nurseries in California where it was tested, it reduced workers’ forward bending angle by as much as 47%. The time spent working at a forward-bent angle of more than 20 degrees was reduced by nearly half. Hand gripping effort was reduced by more than half. Lifting strain was reduced by 40%. Workers reported less work-related pain when using the handles, and those who had the most severe symptoms at the start reported the most improvement.

Sub-irrigated Planters

Sub-irrigated planters are simple devices that allow low-maintenance, low-water consumption container gardening. Appropedia has DIY-instructions, using plastic buckets or bottles.

Previously: Water batteries for trees, How to make your own low-tech vertical farm.

The Farming Systems Trial (1981-2011)

Metafilter reports that The Rodale Institute has just published the results of a 30-year study that claims that - in terms of yields, economic viability, energy usage, and human health - organic farming is better than conventional farming.

With results like these, why does conventional wisdom favour chemical farming? "Vested interests. Organic farming keeps more money on the farm and in rural communities and out of the pockets of chemical companies. As the major funders of research centres and universities, and major advertisers in the farm media, they effectively buy a pro-chemical bias."

The Agricultural Building and Equipment Plan List

"The University of Tennessee Extension maintains a collection of over 300 building and equipment plans, and all are now available in electronic format for download. The plans are primarily intended for use in Tennessee, but many are appropriate for other locations as well.

The plans came from many sources. Some were developed in The University of Tennessee Extension Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science Department, but most were developed in a cooperative effort with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Cooperative Farm Building Plan Exchange. The Plan Exchange no longer exists, but the plans remain on file and are available." Via The Survivalist Blog.

Illustrated Inventory of Antique Farm Tools (1600 - 1940)

Peter Charles Dorrington collected and restored over 750 antique farm tools between 1985 and 2001. Most of these tools were agricultural hand implements and fenland tools that were used in England, Wales and Scotland, dating from about 1600 to 1940, for example: "chaff cutters", "flails", scythes", "dibbers" and "breast ploughs". Antique Farm Tools. On the picture: a rotary seed drill. Related: the museum of old techniques.

Fences of Fruit Trees

"Almost anyone who has a backyard or garden would do well to plant fruit trees for the years ahead. Most fruit trees, though, take more years to mature than most of us have to prepare, and take up more space than most of us have in cities or suburbs. Luckily, only a few centuries ago master gardeners developed a way to cultivate fruit in narrow spaces – one that yields more fruit, more quickly, and with a longer growing season.

Espalier is a method of growing a dwarf fruit tree along a wall or fence, binding it for support, and bending the branches to follow certain lines, as Japanese artists do with bonsai trees. Most gardeners started espaliers with a “maiden,” a one-year-old sapling that had not yet forked, and tied it to a staff of wood to keep it straight. Then they tied the desired branches to the fence or wall as they emerged, bending and pruning aggressively as the tree grew.

With the tree’s natural growth concentrated into only two dimensions, it creates many spurs looking for a chance to spread, creating more flowers and fruit than their conventional counterparts, and earlier in the trees’ life. The fruit can be picked casually while standing or sitting, with no need for the ladders or devices needed to pick many other fruit trees, and no risk of injury. Growing a tree against a south-facing wall has another advantage; not only does the tree receive maximum light and heat, but the thermal mass of the wall absorbs the heat and provides shelter from the wind. In this way trees get a longer growing season, and can grow in cooler climates than they would ordinarily tolerate."

Read more: Fences of fruit trees. Related: Irish hedgerows.

How To Build Your Own Industrial Civilization

"The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is an open technological platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small civilization with modern comforts. Key features of the GVCS: Open Source - Low-Cost - Modular - User-Serviceable - DIY - Closed-Loop Manufacturing - High Performance - Heirloom Design - Flexible Fabrication."

"A modern, comfortable lifestyle relies on a variety of efficient Industrial Machines. If you eat bread, you rely on an Agricultural Combine. If you live in a wood house, you rely on a Sawmill. Each of these machines relies on other machines in order for it to exist. If you distill this complex web of interdependent machines into a reproduceable, simple, closed-loop system, you get these 50 machines."

The GVCS is a work-in-progress. See the wiki, the blog and (the best introduction) the movie.

Related: How to make everything ourselves: open modular hardware.

Micro-Livestock: Little Known Small Animals with a Promising Economic Future

Mathew Lippincott sends in this link to a 1991 book on micro-livestock, including currently domesticated and potential future domestication candidates among large mammals, rodents, insects, birds, and lizards: "Micro-livestock: little known small animals with a promising economic future".

Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them

"Handy farm devices and how to make them", Rolfe Cobleigh, 1912.

Fertilizer Trees

"Presenting the antithesis to the high-tech, high-cost and genetically-modified industrial vision sometimes pushed on Africa, Science Daily reports on the potential of evergreen agriculture and the use of fertilizer trees to increase food production, in a low-cost and environmentally more sustainable way", writes Matthew McDermott at Treehugger.

Guerilla Farming

"We've long gardened in two raised beds in the parkway in front our house (the parkway being the space between the sidewalk and the street). This is officially city property, though we are responsible for maintaining it. It gets great morning light, so it's a valuable growing space. It's also fun to garden out in public, so we can talk to our neighbors and get all the fresh gossip, and show little kids what food looks when its growing. The drawback to a public garden, of course, is that it is defenseless." Read. Via Dinosaurs & Robots.