Unity Farm Journal - Second Week of July 2016

As we scale up production of fruits, vegetables, honey, mushrooms, and compost, the key to our success is automation.    It’s challenging for two people (my wife and I) to run 15 acres of organic agriculture and support 150 animals part time using only handtools and muscles.  Last year, we produced 50 pounds of honey.   This year we’ll produce 1200 poundsLast year, we did not sell compost.   This year, we’ll bag up 10,000 poundsWe’ve added automation slowly, only in resposne to market demand for our products.   For honey extraction, we’ve used a hand cranked centrifuge, which is great for 50 pounds.    Hand cranking 1200 pounds of honey extraction is not practical.   This year, we’re moving from a 4 frame spinner to a 21 frame electric spinner.    Given that high quality local honey sells at retail for $15-20 per pound, we should be able to recover our investment in a reasonable timeframe.As I wrote about last week, compost production requires a trommel to screen out rocks/sticks/debris.   In the world of compost sifting, there seems to be two extremes - a hand shoveled sifter (great for 50 pounds) and a commercial screener (great for 50,000 pounds).   What do you do in the middle?  You build your own electric screener.    This week, I’ve ordered everything I need to build the screener pictured below.Motor in a farm grade housingTwo 5/8 2.05” pulley type A One 5/8 9.25” pulley ty...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs