Farm Design
Organic Farming & Applied Design
Photo credit: Courtney Elizabeth
As Ben Hartman is fond of saying, “eliminated waste equals capacity”. One of the most prevalent forms of waste for early stage farmers like myself (who are still figuring out their production systems), is wasted time through repetitive and unnecessary movement. Towards reducing this form of waste, I’m building and sharing tools created to increase our capacity.
Along with growing mixed veggies on our organic farm in southern Maine, we have a small apiary, laying hen operation, and create our own forest cultivated log mushrooms.
Mushroom Wax Gun
Our mushroom wax gun applies molten beeswax to 3-ft hardwood logs to seal in mushroom spore/sawdust mix for the final step in mushroom inoculation. A stainless steel Venturi valve at the end of an air gun pulls melted wax from a stainless culinary piston funnel (wrapped in heat tape) through a food-grade silicone hose. Pressure can be finely controlled at the air compressor, and on the air gun, to dose wax atomization. Silicone tape helps to hold heat tape wrapped around the silicone hose, ensuring the beeswax remains liquid at cold ambient temps. Inoculation takes place in our Mush Room.