Comments on: Blue Blade; Destroyer of Favas

By: In The Loop » Blog Archive » Blue Blade; Destroyer of Favas

In The Loop » Blog Archive » Blue Blade; Destroyer of Favas — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:17:07 +0000

[...] by Bill from his Bay Area community garden [...]

By: Amie

Amie — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:28:40 +0000

That is the biggest damned cuisinart I have ever seen! What an ingenious idea! Hope you see a huge return via awesome soil and super healthy vegs.

By: Mental P Mama

Mental P Mama — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:15:44 +0000

Now that is impressive. Are you coming out here to help your sis in her foray at our community garden? I have high hopes;)

By: Jeffrey J Hoover

Jeffrey J Hoover — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:56:14 +0000

Whoof! Plastic cylinder holding back spinning metal blades of death with a wide open throttle? Yikes!

Um cage of steel mesh? 55 gal drum?

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:17:11 +0000

wow, i have never heard of using plants to help feed plants, seems a bit canabalistic, but i bet it would work. thanks for the info.

[ed: uh.... right... silly spammer just wrote, perhaps, the most inane comment ever. Link removed.]

By: bbum

bbum — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:56:33 +0000

Nah. This things shreds as many favas as you can fit in the tube at once; 5 or 6 plants. No problem.

If they were dry, it’d just be more dust. And spreading the damp plants, then working ‘em into the soil, seems to really make working the soil that much easier and improve the quality of the mix quite a bit.

By: John C. Randolph

John C. Randolph — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:54:54 +0000

Does it help to let the plants dry out first?

-jcr

By: bbum

bbum — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:50:14 +0000

You really want to pull the plants out by the roots and they really do need to be fed through the blades from the top. If not, you’ll end up with big chunks of fava plant which will not mix into the soil well and can lead to air pockets, which is a great way to encourage root borne diseases. Alternatively, you can just toss all the favas on a compost heap and let ‘em sit for a season. Till the composted ones into the soil and make a new heap out of next season’s favas.

A better design would be to take a standard mower, cut a hole through the deck, weld on a steel tube of the appropriate diameter and then mount the entire thing on mount the entire thing on a wooden barrel or steel cylinder as Peter suggested above.

This is a total hack; it works, but I would not recommend this particular design to anyone for any reason.

By: Mel

Mel — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:47:42 +0000

Do you think you could get a similar result from planting a working mulching mower over a big pile of fava plants? Or is the feeder an integral step in getting the fine result?

By: Peter Bierman

Peter Bierman — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:50:52 +0000

Yikes! A sheet of 14ga steel bent into a cylinder at techshop would make that thing a lot less likely to take out someone’s ankles. shiver