TODAYS SEAT TIME

[daugen]

That digger is 3100 smackers.

Instead, how about a 15'' V shovel on a 3 Pt hitch for maybe $200 and be 90% as good? It also doubles as a planter by making a shallower groove and dropping potatoes in by hand. A cheapie like this will bolt on most any cultivator shank and work very well. Not as good but save $2900 and buy more implements.

View attachment 585759

Thanks. I used a middlebuster last year. It worked but left many potatoes in ground, got clogged on weeds and had to be picked up fairly often leaving big gaps. Could be just operator error, inadequate weed control, ?, but when you are doing a whole acre of potatoes, having something that works better and makes it easier for pickers is a plus. Most of my helpers are seniors...
I'm actually trying to get the food pantry to buy this implement, let them own it, and therefore enable local farmers to grow potatoes for them.

 

[Green Acres Homestead]

That digger is 3100 smackers.

Instead, how about a 15'' V shovel on a 3 Pt hitch for maybe $200 and be 90% as good? It also doubles as a planter by making a shallower groove and dropping potatoes in by hand. A cheapie like this will bolt on most any cultivator shank and work very well. Not as good but save $2900 and buy more implements.

View attachment 585759

Very interesting. I am in the market for farm implements.

 

[Green Acres Homestead]

See Mine.
Note: 3 Snowblower shear bolts attach Plate to the 3-Point Drawbar.

Nice Fabricate.

 

[sixdogs]

Thanks. I used a middlebuster last year. It worked but left many potatoes in ground, got clogged on weeds and had to be picked up fairly often leaving big gaps. Could be just operator error, inadequate weed control, ?, but when you are doing a whole acre of potatoes, having something that works better and makes it easier for pickers is a plus. Most of my helpers are seniors...
I'm actually trying to get the food pantry to buy this implement, let them own it, and therefore enable local farmers to grow potatoes for them.

I can appreciate that and love new equipment because I take better care than most others. If you could find one at auction--and you can search the 'net around the country these days, I bet it would sell cheap even if in perfect condition. I've seen them sell so it's worth a look. A PTO digger is probably better for older folks and I could understand buying new. I'm pretty sure the one you're looking at is made in Poland so might be hard to find parts, if ever needed. Look around. If not, buying is OK for the effort it saves the elderly.

As well, I use to live where potatoes were THE crop and those old PTO diggers--same thing you're looking at but older--worked great, rarely broke and were everywhere. I see some at auction around here and they don't bring much. I surely love to buy new but a cheap and old digger would work fine and leave more $$ for other implements. The new one is a copy of the old one.

Oh, on the wide furrow one row digger, you put tined bars at the end of the moldboard and they bring the spuds out further and knock them cleaner. Some moldboards are twisted different for spuds. All that is hard for oldpeople. They can bend over just fine; it's the getting up that's the hard part.

I have some potato hillers and cover wings you might be interested in. PM

 

[sixdogs]

Very interesting. I am in the market for farm implements.

I'll bet there are older diggers are all over the place in NB and NS. Lots in Maine so maybe look in Uncle Henry's swap sheet or put a wanted ad in.

 

[daugen]

Most of the potato diggers I saw for sale were multi row. I need a single row.
I did look on CraigsList, nothing local.
I'm not saying a slightly modified "potato plow" wouldn't do fine. Here are some pics of the first of community potato digs.
This was only about 1000 pounds dug that day and I wore them out. That scooper and shaker lays the potatoes out nice, less bending.

I have to remember my helpers/very few young folk here...

and yes the potatoes were overrun with weeds. Have a better plan for this year.

 

[dragoneggs]

Most of the potato diggers I saw for sale were multi row. I need a single row.
I did look on CraigsList, nothing local.
I'm not saying a slightly modified "potato plow" wouldn't do fine. Here are some pics of the first of community potato digs.
This was only about 1000 pounds dug that day and I wore them out. That scooper and shaker lays the potatoes out nice, less bending.

I have to remember my helpers/very few young folk here...

and yes the potatoes were overrun with weeds. Have a better plan for this year.

I love that first pic!

 

[Jstpssng]

Most of the potato diggers I saw for sale were multi row. I need a single row.
I did look on CraigsList, nothing local.
I'm not saying a slightly modified "potato plow" wouldn't do fine. Here are some pics of the first of community potato digs.
This was only about 1000 pounds dug that day and I wore them out. That scooper and shaker lays the potatoes out nice, less bending.

I have to remember my helpers/very few young folk here...

and yes the potatoes were overrun with weeds. Have a better plan for this year.

Every used single row digger that I see is on somebody's lawn as an ornament. It's been many decades since any farms up here have dug one row at a time. That unit which you are looking for is just the ticket for what you are doing. I wonder if there is a way that you could feed them into a hopper, i.e., the bed of a pickup?

 

[lostcreekranch]

I love that first pic!

The famous “potato cam”.

 

[daugen]

The famous “potato cam”.

that picture was taken by a 22 year old Mormon* Elder (?) who I asked to take a few pics and boy was that young
man a delight. He and his buddy were the hardest workers in the volunteer dig group, of course I gave them a job driving my
Kubota UTV and they were seriously all smiles after that. But this guy crawls down in that newly dug and frankly too wet furrow and took that
picture. Literally laying on his stomach in the muddy field. He was having a ball. On some kind of mission for two years and doing volunteer work like this was right up their alley. I hope to get them back this year if they are still around.

The picture sort of defines a fresh potato. Seriously prime seat time. Harvest time is very special after all the work you put into it.
So far, no potato bugs. This will the second year. Going to have to spray. Need to find a very large bottle of Neem oil, that's about all I use.
Small bottles are stupidly expensive as it is.

*wrong name, I know, wish they would abbreviate, a nice acronym...